If Wishes Were Bullets
by xxmisfit121
Summary: A collection of one-shots and short stories about how Death the Kid and the Thompson sisters' relationship evolves. No pairings. T for language.
1. Dealing With Death Part 1

_A/N: The title is the title of a song by Die So Fluid. _

_Alright well, for some reason people keep asking me to continue my one-shots (WHICH ARE ONE-SHOTS FOR A REASON!) so, I've decided I'm just going to make a collection of Kid Liz Patty one-shots__._

_How this story is going to work is there will be a mini story that will take up two or three chapters about when they first met, and from then on it will just be random one-shots that aren't necessarily related. _

_ I know there are a shit-ton of stories about how Kid and the Thompson sisters met and learned to deal with each other and all that, but... Well... This has been in my head for a while and I want to write it. So here you go._

_However, I feel like they probably wouldn't have gotten along very well to begin with and like Liz and Patty would've been a bit harsher in the beginning. Also, Sid isn't a zombie yet at the moment._

* * *

><p>Sid was only supposed to be observing their training session, but was very tempted to intervene. It was going quite awfully as far as he could tell. Lord Death had told him that he wanted his son to be given the chance to train his new weapons himself and so had sent him to the small training yard behind the Gallows Mansion to supervise. He'd told him something about how it would make it more "meaningful" for Kid if he did it himself. At the moment, though, Sid didn't think that was all that important. He didn't think it was getting anyone anywhere if their entire training lesson consisted of more yelling and screaming than actual training.<p>

Elizabeth and Patricia, he believed were their names, the Brooklyn Devils. They were definitely not the type of people he'd figured Death the Kid would find to be suitable weapon partners. Sure, they made him symmetrical, but somewhere in Sid's mind he figured Kid would have a hard time dealing with girls so different from himself. Kid was a very neat and tidy person who strived for absolute perfection in every aspect of his life. These two seemed to be rather loud and rather, in a sense, messy.

The older sister, Elizabeth, didn't seem to at all get along with Kid. He knew that with Kid being a death god, he would easily be able to math soul wavelengths with both of them, but he wondered just how well the relationship would work out in the end. She seemed to be over defensive and somewhat bossy. It was clear that being told what to do was not something she tolerated well. Being Kid was their meister and technically the leader of their team, as well as being fairly bossy himself, that meant she was receiving a lot of orders at the moment. These orders were usually met with aggravated protest and unneeded threats. No, she didn't seem to like Kid at all.

"Are you _fucking _kidding me?" she screamed at him, out of breath, for the umpteenth time that day.

"Could you not swear, Elizebeth?" Kid responded, much calmer than she'd have wanted.

"Its _Liz, _you brat!" she corrected, unnecessarily loud. "And I will swear all I fucking want to!"

The younger sister, Patricia, was laughing hysterically, apparently finding her sister's irritation highly amusing. Patricia, Sid had decided, was absolutely insane. Half of what came out of her mouth was near nonsense and she laughed in the most childish yet sadistic way he'd ever seen. Her unpredictability was surely something that got to Kid. He'd seen him glare at her many times during her laughing fits. He clearly didn't like that he couldn't determine any sort of pattern to her behavior other than the fact that she found things that irritated him to be quite hilarious. When wielding her sister to show him how to hold a gun, Kid had been completely horrified at how random and spastically she'd shot at the targets. Sid, too, had been somewhat bothered by her aim, but upon seeing that she seemed to be hitting the targets alright he decided to let it be. That had been yesterday. Now, however, Kid was working on training them physically so that they could handle any necessary traveling or obstacle they might encounter on missions. Elizabeth seemed to be the most disobedient here.

"Why the hell do we need to be able to run anyway? We're s'pose be your _weapons_, aren't we? You'll be carrying us the whole time!" She yelled at him in an attempt to get out of training anymore. They'd been training all morning and she was exhausted and sweaty and not at all happy.

"I need you to be able to move quickly incase anything goes wrong," He said. "Of course, I highly doubt that anything like that will ever occur, but its important to be prepared."

"If you don't think anything's gonna go wrong, then why are you making us run 'til we puke?" Elizabeth retaliated, gritting her teeth.

"Because being prepared is important. Besides, I believe most weapons at the academy are required to do this exact same training every day," Kid answered. He was entirely right, and his voice showed that he definitely knew he was right. It was that smug tone that she couldn't stand.

"Oh, the academy," she mocked him with an exasperated sigh in her voice. "Clearly, if they think making people vomit is good training they've gotta be geniuses, don't they?"

"Don't you dare insult my father's school," he hissed, finally showing that irritation she was looking for.

"Don't _you _dare make my sister puke again!" She yelled, pointing at her giggling sister sitting on the ground a few feet away, drinking from a water bottle in between laughs. It was true. She had run too much and vomited upon becoming overheated. Kid had told them to take a break as soon as it had happened, but had not ended the training session as Liz would've liked.

"She seems fine at the moment," he said.

The blonde's eyes were wild and she grabbed Kid by the hair, forcing him to look her straight in the face. He winced a bit at the feeling, and winced even more as he realized how messy his hair would be when she let go. "Look, you little midget, if you make my little sister sick again or hurt her in _any _way, I swear to god, I'll-"

"Alright, alright, that's enough," Sid had finally decided it was time to cut it. This wasn't going anywhere. Something needed to be set straight.

"I'll admit it's going to be hard to sync three soul wavelengths together properly, but you guys don't even look like you're trying to get along," the man told them.

Liz released Kid's peculiarly patterned locks with obvious reluctance, not saying a word but glaring sharply at the man confronting her. Kid immediately began running his fingers through his thin hair, trying desperately to fix it as quickly as he could. Patty stopped laughing long enough to come stand with Liz, keeping herself somewhat behind her sister's shoulder for protection. It was a subconscious action that stemmed from something rattling nervously in her stomach.

"Kid," the boy looked up at him attentively upon hearing his name, "You need to be a little bit more patient, maybe try to listen to what they have to say."

At this Liz seemed to think, momentarily, that she'd to won the argument and a smirk spread across her face. However, that look was erased quickly as Sid continued.

"And you, Elizabeth-"

"Liz," She hissed.

"Alright. Liz, you should try and listen to what Kid has to say as well and start cooperating with him. Keep an open mind about the training," He said cooly.

"Keep an open mind, huh? I don't really think working us to death is that great of an idea if you ask me." She said, crossing her arms defiantly.

"You're not going to die," Kid rolled his eyes. "Don't be so overdramatic. It'll get easier if-"

"Oh _I'm_ over dramatic?" She turned to him, pointing at her own chest for emphasis. "Who was it crying like a baby last night because a picture frame was crooked?"

"I was not crying!" He defended.

"Yes you were! You totally were being all 'Bwahhh!'" Patty added, throwing her face to the sky and imitating his sobbing with an over embellished wail.

"I don't sound like that, Patricia," Kid sighed, trying to sound indifferent despite the fact that he was feeling quite embarrassed. His nervous tugging at the rings on his fingers gave his facade away.

"I told'ja to call me Patty" She said happily, her soprano voice not sounding at all angry as her sister's had. "And you totally did and you know it."

"Exactly. Don't be calling me overdramatic when you go and throw tantrums like a freakin' two-year-old," she smirked. "'Sides. You didn't see _you _running your ass off out there!"

"I already did my training this morning," He told her as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Sid sighed. They just couldn't seem to go even a few seconds without arguing.

"I think it would be a good idea if you guys spent some time trying to get along. Training wont matter if you can't stand each other," He interrupted. "I'm not the kind of man to ignore orders so I can't officially end this training session for you, but I'm gonna suggest you do."

"I second that!" Liz said.

"Me too!" Patty agreed.

"I don't really think-"

"It's three against one, Kid. You lose. That's it. Practice is over!" Liz said triumphantly. Patty squealed and the two ran off together back towards the mansion.

"Oh, sure, now they run," he sighed as he watched them sprint away.

"You've got your work cut out for you with those two," Sid attempted to empathize.

"They keep messing up the house. Especially Patty. She spent the better part of last night running through all of the halls like a madman, which made all of the carpets crooked. They also don't seem to understand the concept of 'coasters'," Kid said, rubbing his temples.

"Well they did just get off the streets two days ago. You can't expect them to have perfect manners just yet," he defended them.

"I suppose you're right," he agreed, though he still sounded mildly annoyed.

"Like I said. Just be patient," He clapped him on shoulder. "Maybe it'll be good for you to have some disorder in your life,"

Kid just gave him a wide-eyed look that clearly conveyed that he couldn't believe that disorder could ever be good. Sid replied with a soft laugh and said, "I've got to get going. I've got a class to get to soon. Good luck."

* * *

><p>Death the Kid stepped into the wonderfully conditioned air of the Gallows mansion. He closed the french doors behind him with a small <em>click <em>and simply stood in a rather awkward silence that seemed to follow him into the sitting room. Light streamed in through the windows that took up almost all of the southern wall. Glass stretched from ceiling to floor, providing an excellent view of an extravagant, and perfectly symmetrical, back garden consisting mainly of red roses and odd, black, willow trees. It was almost like a maze with its many winding paths and walls of perfectly trimmed hedges. It was bordered by a tall stone wall with an iron gate in its exact center leading into the training area which was, in comparison to the garden, somewhat small.

Kid felt somewhat intrusive and out of place as he walked into the bright room, which beckoned anger to creep into his throat as this was _his _house. The two sisters were sitting casually in the large, white, whicker chairs and had previously been laughing and talking before his entrance. Patty seemed unbothered and smiled at him, but did not say anything. Liz gave him a cold, blank look as though he had just _rudely _interrupted a very important conversation. There were several moments of painful silence before he cleared his throat, hoping to banish any trace of irritation.

"Well, we should probably do something," he paused, looking away for a moment. "Go hang out or something."

"Oh! We should go shopping!" Patty jumped up, fearlessly taking the silence head on. "You said ya'd take us shopping, Kid! 'Member? You said ya'd take us and let us buy whatever we wanted!"

She grabbed Kid by the arm and bounced up and down excitedly. "C'mon, please, please, please? You said ya would! You said ya would!"

"Okay, Patricia, alright. We can go shopping," Kid said, laughing a bit at the girl's enthusiasm.

"You'd really just buy us whatever we want?" Liz asked, a bit disbelieving. "You're sure?"

"Of course," Kid answered her, somewhat bothered by her distrust. "As far as I know, you both have very few clothes, none of which are hardly decent," he winced a bit, "As my weapons you're going to have to dress properly. You can buy whatever you need."

"Really?" Liz continued, clearly trying to hide her own excitement.

"I am not a liar, Elizabeth," He stated simply.

"Alright then, Death the Kid," She said, mocking his insistence on using their full names. "Lets get going, then,"

"Yes!" Patty exclaimed, wrapping her arms around her new meister and jumping up and down some more.

"P-Patricia!" Kid gasped nervously. He was trying not to be rude, but the girl was covered in sweat and her breath still smelled like vomit. She was also hugging him from the side which made him feel quite unbalanced.

"Oh. Sorry, Kid!" she let going of him, but continued her jumping and squealing.

"Perhaps you should both take showers before we go," Kid said, brushing off his jacket. Liz opened her mouth to say something but Kid beat her to it. "After all, you did just get done training. Showering afterwords is a ritual most people practice."

Liz shut her mouth and crossed her arms defensively.

"Okay!" Patty agreed, too excited by the idea of shopping to care. She skipped happily out of the room, leaving Kid and Liz alone in another awkward silence.

"I'm not lying to you, you know," Kid said, finally. "It isn't a problem,"

"I know its just..." Liz wasn't sure what she wanted to say.

"You don't trust me?" He finished for her.

"Well how am I supposed to? I mean, this is awesome and everything, but rich kids don't usually just come and pick girls up off the streets and just start giving them anything they want," she said, her voice underlined with suspicion. "I swear to god, if this is some big elaborate-"

"I can assure you that's not the case," He stopped her. "I am in need of weapons, specifically ones that will make me symmetrical, and feel like you two are the most suitable. I honestly don't think that there is anyone out there that is quite the same as you and your sister. You're perfectly perfect."

"And then you go and do _that_ and talk about us like we're objects," Liz's glare sharpened. He looked away for a moment, thinking about what to say.

"I don't mean it that way," was all he came up with in the end.

"Look, Kid, there's a hell of a lot of freaks in New York that'll do a lot of weird shit to get girls to do what they want. I realize you're only like, twelve, but-"

"Fifteen,"

"What?" she hardly caught what he said.

"I'm fifteen." he corrected her.

"Okay whatever. The point I'm trying to make is that rule number one is that if the first thing a guy tells you is that you're pretty, you don't trust him. Even if he is a brat who never shuts up about symmetry," She continued. "When you live like me and Patty do... did, you meet some pretty weird-ass people."

"I'm going to have to allow my father to meet you soon. Preferably after you have some new clothes," he looked her over as he said it. "Maybe then this will all make more sense. Hmm... Yes. I think tonight you aught to meet him,"

"So you're really just gonna buy us whatever we want?" she asked one last time.

"Of course," Kid was getting tired of answering this question.

Liz was beginning to realize something the more time she spent with Kid. _This kid... is an idiot..._

* * *

><p>"Patty! Look at this dress. Isn't it cute?" Liz said excitedly, holding up the dress to show her sister. It was a simple pink and yellow plaid sundress. "You should try it on. It would look so nice on you."<p>

Patty squeaked happily and nodded, letting Liz lay it on top of the enormous pile of clothes she currently had in her arms. It was becoming heavy, but she didn't mind. The older girl didn't mind either with her own piled draped over just one arm being almost as heavy. However, Patty seemed to have twice as many clothes as her sister being she was not only carrying what she'd picked out herself, but also what Liz had picked out for her.

"Oh Liz! That hat! Lookit!" She moved one of her arms slightly, though not enough to drop the clothes, to gesture toward a hat that looked like some odd cross between a cowboy hat and a witch's hat.

"Okay, those could be fun, I guess," Liz said, grabbing one of them with her free hand and laying it on Patty's pile.

"You should get one too! We can match!" the little blonde girl said excitedly. "C'mon, sis, it'll be fun!"

"I dunno, Patty. Its not really my thing," the taller girl looked at the hats skeptically.

"Oh please!" she begged. "Just try it! We can be like cowgirls! It'll be great!"

"Alright," Liz grabbed one of the hats for herself.

"Look at that!" the younger sister gasped suddenly before bolting across the store.

"Wait, Patty!" the older called after her as she followed.

Kid simply watched them, slightly horrified, from his position against the wall. He never imagined that anyone could possibly need so many clothes. Even _he_, who had a customly made suit for every occasion and then a good amount of casual clothes, didn't think that they would go so far. He really hoped that they didn't plan on buying all of those things, that they would dislike some of them when they tried them on. He was now having second thoughts about his promise. He knew, of course, that this was the right thing to do, but he was getting worried that they'd get him in trouble with his father. The problem he seemed to have where he felt the need to please everyone and appear perfect in every aspect of his personality was becoming a hindrance. Oh god, he really hoped they didn't want him to buy them _everything_ in the store.

"Hey, Kid, we're gonna go try this stuff on." Liz informed him. He looked up to see them both carrying a considerably large amount of clothes. Patty's face was someone obstructed by her stack.

"Oh. Great," He said, trying not to sound worried.

Kid pushed himself off the wall, hands still in the pockets of his jeans. He'd decided to dress casually for this trip, just jeans and a black button-down shirt with white pinstripes. He followed them to the dressing rooms, sitting awkwardly on a bench as they tried on pretty much every item of clothing in the entire store. They did come out of the dressing rooms to show each other their outfits quite a few outfits. They had asked Kid his opinions a bit in the beginning, but has stopped when he would only picked out the asymmetrical imperfections of the garment itself, rather than commenting on how they looked in it, which had been what they'd wanted. However, he still voiced his opinions quite clearly without their asking.

"You cannot wear that, Elizabeth," he said. "Ever."

Liz rolled her eyes. "It's not that bad. I like it," She played stuck her hands in the pockets of the plum satin dress. The problem was that there was a flower on the right side of the chest. "The asymmetry makes it cool."

Kid looked horror struck. "Never say that again. Now take that off,"

Liz turned around, sighing. "God, your a prick," she said as she shut the door.

Patty opened her door just after her sister shut hers. "Hey, Kiddy? Watcha think of this for my outfit for when we're on missions?"

Kid winced at that nickname. He really hoped it wouldn't stick. "Please don't call me that, Patrica... Patty." He then proceeded to look at her outfit, if it could be called that. Patty seemed to have trouble creating outfits that made sense. this one that she was wearing involved a pink cat-eared hat, a bright green tank-top with a red cropped sweater over top of it, mittens, a day-glow orange scarf, unmatching knee socks, and a pair of puffy denim shorts.

"No, Patty. Just, no," Kid answered, sickened slightly.

He then turned his attention to Liz, who had just changed outfits. She was wearing jeans, an amused smirk and a tight-fitting white shirt with _only_ _one sleeve__._

"Okay, now you're just trying to make me angry," he looked to the floor, unable to stand the chaos of either girl's outfit.

Liz sighed and looked at her younger sister. "Patty, um..." she wasn't sure how to tell her without making her upset, as Kid seemed to already have by the way she was glaring at him. She looked like she was trying very hard not to rip his throat out. "Hey, um, look just..." she couldn't get the words out. "Here,"

She stepped out of her changing room and the few steps across the narrow hall to her sister. She gently grabbed her wrists and removed the mittens. She unwrapped the scarf from her neck as well. "Hmm... take off the green shirt and just wear the red one." Patty started immediately to remove her shirt. "Wait!" Liz stepped out of the dressing room and shut the door. "Okay, now."

"Liz, um.. could you..." Liz looked down to see her new meister with a rather sick look on his face peering up at her from the bench.

"What?" she said and then remembered her own shirt. "Oh, right..." She didn't have time to change at the moment as she was trying to help Patty, so she just threw a denim jacket on over the shirt to hide it.

"Thank you," Kid said sincerely. He looked relieved.

"Um.. you're welcome," Liz said, not quite sure how to respond. Patty came back out then, wearing just the dark red cropped sweater and the puffy denim shorts, as well as the cat hat and the non-matching socks.

"There, that's much better," her sister told her. Patty seemed very happy with herself. Then, suddenly, and idea struck the younger sister and she removed the cat hat from her head, skipped over to the bench, and shoved it over her meister's hair.

"Augh, Patty..." he protested as his head was pushed roughly downward with more force than should have needed to be applied to put on a hat.

"Kiddy cat!" She squealed gleefully. Kid grimaced, but Patty and Liz laughed amusedly. The boy ripped the hat off of his head immediately and put it down onto the bench next to him irritably. He then crossed his arms and slumped back into his seat with an expression on his face that could only be described as a pout. He looked like such a child now that the two girls couldn't help but laugh more.

"Oh!" Patty skipped back into the dressing room and dug through her pile of clothes until she found what she was looking for. She placed the cowboyish hat on her head and looked at herself in the mirror. She gasped happily. "I wanna wear this for my mission outfit!" she proclaimed excitedly.

"Only without the socks," Kid said. "And only if Liz matches."

"I... I don't know," Liz looked at it skeptically.

"C'mon sis, please?" Patty begged. "'Sides, we should _totally _dress as cowgirls if we're gonna be Kid's weapons! You even said so yesterday,"

"I was joking a bit, Patty," Liz said.

"Why, exactly?" Kid asked confusedly.

"'Cause!" the shorter girl started. "Your named is Death the Kid, like that cowboy guy with the guns from those stories, only his name was Billy the Kid. And we're the Thompson sisters and there was some guy who's last name was Thompson who was a cowboy and shot people too! You think we're related to that guy, sis?"

"I don't know, Patty, it's certainly possible," she answered her sister's question.

Kid didn't say anything. He simply nodded agreeingly.

"So can we dress like this, please, sis?" Patty asked, clasping her hands together in front of her face.

"I suppose," Liz complied. Patty jumped and squealed. "But I'm not going to wear those shorts. I don't think I could pull it off. I'd rather just wear jeans."

"But then you wont be identical," Kid complained.

"We'll be close enough, though, wont we?" Liz said, quickly getting tired of Kid's problem with symmetry.

"Absolutely not," he said.

"Kid, come on," Liz started. "We look different anyway. What's a different pair of pants going to matter?"

"Elizabeth, I mean, Liz, please..." he whined.

"Oh my god, fine," Liz finally complied begrudgingly. _I'll just get them and then not wear them,_ she thought.

"Good," Kid said, happy now that he felt he'd gotten his way.

"Alright, now that that's sorted out, there's something else me and Patty need that you don't need to see," the older girl told Kid directly. "C'mon, Patty."

"Wait, why can't I-"

"We need bras, Kid," she told him and he shut his mouth quickly, looking slightly embarrassed.

"We'll be right back. Make sure no one takes our stuff," she said before the two exited the fitting room. Kid just continued to sit awkwardly on the small bench, wishing this shopping trip would end and praying that his father wouldn't kill him for spending too much money.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Alright, so hopefully that was good for now... Please review and tell me what you think._


	2. Dealing With Death Part 2

_A/N: About the part in the previous chapter with the cowboy connection, I'm positive that Kid is supposed to be named after Billy the Kid, however, I'm only guessing on the thing with the Thompson sisters. There was a guy who was like billy the Kid who's last name was Thompson (I have no idea what his first name is. Wild West characters aren't exactly something I normally pay attention to. Also, I absolutely hate the word "gunslinger" and don't even want to type it into google, which is what I'd have to do to look it up, simply because it would then be displayed all over my screen. I know that's dumb. shut up.) however, it's also possible that they were named after the Thompson machine gun._

_ I Don't own SoulEater_

* * *

><p>Kid stood in the front hall of the Gallows Mansion at the foot of the stairs, tugging at the skull-shaped broach on his collar nervously. He'd told his father that he'd allow him to meet his new weapons at exactly 8:00 pm. It was currently 7:56, he noted as he glanced at his pocket watch. Liz and Patty weren't downstairs yet. They weren't ready. They were going to make him late.<p>

He'd spent the second half of the day, after they'd come back from their extensive shopping trip, trying desperately to get them to act at least moderately polite. It had been a chore and he'd eventually settled for them just _not _swearing or being blatantly offensive.

When they finally did come down the stairs, an entire thirty seconds later that felt like an eternity to the young reaper, they were both wearing the same strapless dress, only Patty's was pink and Liz's was blue.

"I guess that's matching enough," Kid sighed.

"Why are you so obsessed with us matching anyway?" Liz asked as she made her way down the enormous staircase.

"Because," Kid sighed. "Symmetry _must _be preserved at all times. Everything must be perfectly balanced. You two standing on either side of me while wearing the same outfit makes the three of us an object of perfection."

"You're crazy, you know that?" Liz commented once he'd finished.

Kid didn't say anything, and instead began fixing Patty's dress for her which he'd decided was crooked. He didn't ask first, which bothered Liz to no end being his nitpicking was bringing his hands far closer to her sister's breasts than she felt comfortable with.

"There. That's much better," he said, a satisfied smile on his face.

Liz was becoming nervous suddenly. The reality of the situation was setting in. They were really going to talk to _The Grim Reaper_, to Death himself. Besides that, Kid was such an extremely formal and precise person, it seemed only natural for her to assume that his father would be the same.

"Ladies, come with me," he said, gesturing for them to follow.

_His father _she thought. This was the Grim Reaper's son. Stress began to creep up on her as she thought that fact over. She had called the Grim Reaper's son _crazy, _a_ brat,_ and a_ prick. _She had insulted Death and now her and her sister were going to meet him. The knots in her stomach tightened.

As they followed the teenage reaper through the halls of the mansion, an infinite number of possibilities of what could happen fluttered inside her mind. What would he be like? What would he ask of them? Would he make them perform some kind of test? What if he didn't like her and her sister? What if he downright hated them? If he rejected them, what would he do to them? Would he kill them? Liz swallowed hard, starting to feel sick with worry. She didn't want anything to happen to herself or her sister.

Liz simply stared at the polished white tiles on the floor as they glided under her feet. Were her feet moving? She hadn't been paying attention. She crossed her arms and gripped them tightly. She glanced at Patty who was walking happily on the other side of Kid, her dress flouncing with each of her steps. It had been a long time since she'd seen Patty so happy. Maybe she shouldn't worry. Maybe this would all be a good thing. But of course, Patty was fearless, almost recklessly so. The nerves in her stomach fluttered up her throat and out through her scalp as Kid suddenly stopped walking.

The three were standing in front of a large, elaborate, purplish door adorned with swirling silver embellishments and several skulls. There was a metal plaque at eye level nailed onto it with the words "Death Room (personal entrance)" engraved into its surface.

Liz stared at the menacing looking door with horror. They were really doing this. They were really going to meet the Grim Reaper.

Kid hesitated slightly as he reached for the doorknob and eventually pulled his hand away and turned around to face them. "I want to warn you. My father can be a bit... um... odd," He said. He seemed almost embarrassed, but Liz didn't catch it. Instead, her mind rushed to the worst case scenario.

"Sis, this is going to be freaking awesome!" Patty said excitedly. Liz looked at her, astonished.

"Aren't you even a little bit scared? We're going to meet Death for fuck's sake!" she all but shrieked. Then she noticed the way Kid was looking at her and quickly added, "Sorry. I forgot. No swearing."

"Thank you," he said, looking please. Then his face contorted into something close to irritation. "And you don't have any reason to be scared. Trust me..."

The boy sighed and placed a hand on the door knob. The time it took him to turn the knob and open the door took far too long in Liz's opinion, though it really only took a moment. When the door was finally pushed open, it opened into a room whose physics should have been impossible. As the stepped through the doorway, the came into an impossibly large space that seemed to go on infinitely in all directions. They stood on a shiny hard floor that made up what she supposed could be described as a pathway. Arches styled to look like guillotines lined the pathway, which did nothing to calm her nerves. The pathway was surrounded by what seemed to be a desert dotted with what looked like countless grave markers. The ceiling, if it could be called that, looked like the bluest sky she'd ever seen with little swirling clouds inching through the air on a nonexistent wind. She looked behind them suddenly as the door shut behind her and noticed that the door was standing on it's own with no wall to bind it.

"Come along, you two," he said calmly as he began to walk under those quite deadly looking archways.

"Yeah, okay..." Liz said eyeing the guillotines warily.

"Come on, it'll be fine!" Patty reassured her, grabbing onto her wrist. "Let's go!"

Liz could only stare up at the sharp blades above her as they walked beneath them. Kid found it odd how Liz could act so tough and yet be so fearful. It was defensive, he knew. That was the only reason he was able to let her constant scrutinizing go, because he knew it was just an insecurity. It was something most humans did and, though it was often infuriating, he knew he'd have to learn to deal with it. It didn't occur to him often, but he never really had had to deal with anyone on the type of level he'd have to with these two. He wondered if, as a shiningami, he'd have a hard time relating to humans or if they weren't really that different.

They came upon a large circular platform which was entirely empty accept for a mirror. They walked up the set of three deep but short stairs and onto the platform.

"I'll get him," Kid said, shoving his hands in his pockets. The two girls stopped in the middle of the platform and waited as Kid walked casually up to the mirror. Liz was somewhat confused about what significance the mirror held, but was far too scared to really contemplate it. Her legs were shaking. Patty, on the other hand, was excited. There was just something intriguing and strangely exhilarating about meeting the Grim Reaper that left her rolling on the balls of her feet.

The two watched as Kid touched the mirror's reflective surface, making it rippled and distort like liquid water. He did no more than that and then step back a few feet to stand with the two girls. They watched an image fade onto the mirror and take the shape of a figured covered entirely in an odd black cloak that seemed to have no regards for gravity wearing a mask in the same shape as the countless skulls that decorated Death City.

Liz couldn't think or breath as the figure glided out of the mirror and onto the floor in front of them. She could only stare up at the masked figure who didn't seem to have any definite body beneath that cloak. All the color drained from her face and, though she didn't notice, her mouth was open slightly and she had moved so that she was behind her younger sister, holding onto her shoulders. This was Death. She was standing in front of Death. She had no idea what to do. Her legs were threatening to give out from underneath her when a voice that did not fit the figure before her spoke suddenly.

"Why hello girls!" his voice was cheerful and pretty much as unthreatening as it could possibly be. "Kiddo has told me all about you. It's so wonderful to finally meet you."

All fear suddenly fell away and was replaced by utter astonishment. "You may call me Lord Death," He introduced. "I hope my son has made you feel welcome. I'm afraid he can be a bit of a handful sometimes,"

"D-dad... don't..." Kid whispered, embarrassed.

"You can call me Patty!" Patty raised her hand happily.

"Hello, Patty," He responded. The shorter girl brought her hand to her forehead in a playful salute. He then turned to Liz who was frozen in astonishment.

"And this is my big-sister, Liz," Patty introduced when she realized she wasn't going to say anything. Lord Death's mask changed to a face that conveyed concern.

"Are you alright, Liz? Would you like some tea? You look ill," the death god asked, suddenly pulling out a teapot and cup from seemingly nowhere, holding them in two enormous blocky hands. He poured the tea into the cup and then held it out to her. After a moment, Liz took the cup from him and held it in shaky hands. She stared into the steaming drink, unsure what to think of the situation. Her mind didn't seem to want to accept that Death wasn't frightening. It seemed to go against too many things she knew.

"See? I toldja it wouldn't be so bad!" Patty told her sister, clapping her on her shoulder.

"Liz," Kid said to her gently. "You can calm down now. I told you there was nothing to be scared of," Liz still didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry, Father, she's just um... unsure about this, I guess. She's been like this about everything today," Kid apologized.

"Oh, don't worry about it, Kiddo," Lord Death said. "This is how most new weapons are. Would you like to sit down?"

A chair appeared from beneath the floor, swirls of what looked like black fire dancing around it for a few moments before it dissipated.

Liz only nodded and sat down thankfully, her legs now feeling like pudding. The warmth of the tea in her hands suddenly felt soothing and she allowed herself to take a sip. It felt good, calming going down her throat and her muscles finally began to unclench.

"Now, Kid," the reaper began. "Having two weapons isn't going to be easy. It's also not entirely customary either,"

"Father, it'll be fine. I can handle it. And besides, this way, I'll still be perfectly symmetrical," Kid reassured him.

"I was still hoping you'd choose an actual scythe," Lord Death sighed. "No offense to you, Liz and Patty."

"Don't worry about it," Liz said, finally speaking with an airy and shaky voice.

"Scythes are asymmetrical. I wouldn't be able to fight like that. I know they're traditional, but I want to make my own weapons," Kid said, a vague whine in his voice.

It seemed very much like he was a child talking to his father. This felt strange to her, given the man's (was he a man?) appearance. Patty was perfectly unafraid of the Grim Reaper, of Death. She made Liz feel envious and a bit uneasy. After all, she was supposed to be the older sister, the one to protect her and comfort her. What could she do if she was reduced to _this _so easily?

"Alright, Kid. I can't stop you from choosing your own path," Lord Death said. "But, it will be a bit of extra work for all three of you."

"Don't worry! We got this." Patty reassured them confidently. "We'll be awesome weapons. Plus Kid'll be an awesome meister."

"I trust you to do well, Kid," he told them. He then began speaking more to the Thompsons than Kid. "I'm glad he finally found weapons that meet his expectations, though. I'll admit, I was beginning to think he'd set them too high. He tends to do that quite a lot." He looked at Kid for a moment. "Hopefully that wont cause too many problems."

"It'll be fine, Dad, I can handle it," he said again.

"Hmm..." Lord Death thought for a moment. "Would you like to test your partnership out?"

"Now?" Kid asked, hesitantly excited.

Liz's head snapped up and she stared at them. _Oh god, he doesn't mean..._

"I think I have something I could give you. Nothing big, of course," He said.

Liz turned to look at her sister, who apparently had caught on as well. Her eyes were wide and a wild smile was on her face. "You're going to give us a mission?" She did an enthusiastic jump and clasped her hands together.

"If you'd be alright with taking it on such short notice," Lord Death said.

"Okay!" the younger girl accepted without thinking.

Liz jumped up, "Wait, but, we just got here! And besides that, Kid isn't that great at shooting with us yet."

"Hmm... that is a good point," the reaper agreed. "Though, the best training is often done through experience, and Kid has done this type of thing before without weapons, so I trust him to be safe."

"I think its an excellent idea," Kid added.

"Let's go! C'mon! It'll be fine!" Patty grabbed her sister's arm and tugged. "We can do this. Fighting is what we're best at!"

"A-alright," Liz said. Now that she thought about it, what Patty said true. The only reason she was nervous was because they would now be fighting with Kid, whom she still wasn't entirely sure about. She knew he could fight in unarmed combat. She'd seen it and he was incredibly skilled. He'd manage to kick the collective asses of an entire gang singlehandedly. However, from what they'd seen during training, his ability to shoot a gun was somewhat lacking. He'd also had far too much fun teaching himself how to twirl them in an unnecessarily fancy fashion. He also refused to hold them properly, claiming that _somehow _holding them upside down made holding them feel more symmetrical. She supposed that even if he failed to use them properly, they could still rely on their own abilities as well as his martial arts techniques.

"We can go," Liz agreed.

"Yes!" her sister jumped. Kid looked pleased as well, a smile spreading onto his face.

"Alright then. What have you got for us?" he asked.

"It's pretty simple, really. There is a small town on the east coast that's been experiencing some rather brutal murders," he explained. "I'm almost positive this is the work of a kishin..."

* * *

><p>The speed at which Kid's skateboard moved still astonished the two sisters slightly. They flew more than half way across the country to North Carolina in little more than a few hours. His hair was flung wildly back and away from his face and the air moved by at such a rate and with such a loud roar that it made talking impossible. Yet, Kid seemed unperturbed by the speed entirely and stood as though it were a leisurely pace.<p>

He had to hold the pistols in his hands, though, with such a strong grip that it was actually slightly painful for them. Of course, that pain could also have been from the sheer g-force of the flight. Their weapon forms were more suited to deal with this force, though, than their human bodies. Their metal skin could take much more than their flesh could. Kid, being a shiningami, was surely the only one really suited for this type of transportation.

Eventually, though, as they gradually made it toward their destination, his speed began to slow until they were moving at a much less intense twenty miles per hour. They moved more carefully over a forest area, searching for the building Lord Death had told them about.

"So what exactly does a Kishin look like?" Liz asked once the sound of the wind was no longer blocking her voice.

"It varies quite a lot," Kid said. "They don't look entirely human, though. Usually they look like..." he paused. "Well, I guess the best way to explain it would be that they look like 'human gone wrong',"

"So, like a monster?" Patty simplified.

"Yeah. That'd be a good way to put it," Kid agreed.

"Oh. Great, more creepy shit," Liz sighed. "I mean, stuff," she corrected herself.

Kid scanned the landscape below, looking for any building that might be the one he'd been told the Kishin was hiding in. It was supposed to be some sort of old stone building, likely from the mid 1600's. He had no problem seeing in the dark, so the darkening night did not cause a problem. It only took a few minutes before he found what they were looking for.

"There," He announced and began his descent toward the earth.

In the sky, the moon still smiled above them, its mouth dripping with crimson blood. It was absolutely manic. It was no wonder the moon was known to cause madness.

* * *

><p><em>AN: sorry... the ass-kicking doesn't start until next chapter :( please review._


	3. Dealing With Death Part 3

_A/N: This would've been done sooner if my parents hadn't randomly been all "HEY! We've decided we're all going to boston for two or three days without your consent!" :D_

_Also, I should warn you, I've never written action before... so... um... xD Well, all I'm saying is this may not be all that fantastic._

_I Don't Own Soul Eater_

* * *

><p>The building was ancient, built of old gray stone with iron gates and windows. It looked like it may have been a beautiful cathedral at one point, but was now in such a decrepit state it was hard to see exactly what beauty it may have held. The roof had caved in long ago and the clock on the face of the steeple was missing the numbers seven and three. Kid stepped over one of the clock's iron hands where it lay rusted on the ground, mostly hidden by overgrown grass and dandelions that had turned to white fuzz upon the end of the season.<p>

"There must've been a town here at one point. I don't know why else there'd be a church around here," Kid observed, talking more to himself than the sisters. "The trees are also a bit younger in this area," he added to confirm himself.

"This place is so creepy. I wonder what happened to it," Liz commented.

"Who knows," he whispered. "But that's not why we're here. I doubt this kishin is old enough to have caused it."

Kid walked up the mossy steps toward the rusted iron doors. He slipped the two pistols into his pockets for the moment as he pushed on the heavy doors. They squealed and scraped, but swung open with surprising ease, meaning they'd been used quite a bit recently. He pulled the pistols out of his pockets as he stepped onto the rotting wooden floor, Liz and Patty both deciding that he was going to need holsters if this partnership continued.

The floor too squeaked under his weight, and just as he was worrying that it might give out under him, he noticed that the center of the church's floor had already caved in. All of the pews were askew and many had slid into the dent. The odd thing, though, was that he couldn't feel the kishin's soul wavelength right away. It wasn't until he got close enough to the dent to see that it was, in fact, not a dent, but a hole did he begin to feel it.

His grip on the pistols tightened slightly and his wrists twitched with anticipation. He moved his fingers onto their triggers unconsciously as he peered down into the caved in area. It was dark, enough so that even he was having trouble seeing exactly what may be down there or even how deep it was.

The kishin's wavelength had become more potent now that he was standing on the very edge of the rotting wood. It creaked dangerously under him, threatening to snap. The air was already thick with dust and mold and he could feel even more dampness coming from below him, making him think this was likely a tunnel. He could tell now that the kishin was most certainly inside, hiding. It's depth, however, was still the mystery that kept him from jumping.

"Kid, what're you doing? You've been standing in the same spot for like ever," Liz whispered warily.

"Shh." he shushed her quickly, needing to keep his concentration on his soul perception.

"Maybe he died," Patty giggled.

"Shh!" He needed them quiet. He needed to be able to ignore all of his other senses. He was still a young reaper and so his soul perception was not yet perfect. It would strengthen over time, he knew, but it was still a hindrance. He closed his eyes, trying to block out everything he could so that he could pinpoint the kishin's exact location within the tunnel, which would also hopefully tell him about how deep it was.

He searched for the anomaly, the odd feeling near by that did not belong with the souls of the insects and animals in the area. He did his best to drown those out as well. They were usually easier to ignore since they weren't quite as diverse or intense as human or kishin souls. He realized, uneasily, that the kishin's soul, that small splotch of wrongness, was slowly moving closer.

"Liz, Patty," he said suddenly. "The Ki-" and then the floor was gone from beneath him with a violent and angry _crack_. His stomach flipped, nothing but air rushing around him for several moments. An obscene amount of energy momentarily shot through him, sending him running several feet once he touched the ground. He skidded to a stop and caught himself, and then turned to look up, seeing the dim circular light of their entrance, lighting their way and looming over them like the moon.

The floor was dirt and roots from plants above twisted and wound themselves over the tunnels walls, holding off the dirt and preventing it from collapsing. The kishin's soul was still nearing them slowly, almost leisurely. It made Kid think that it hadn't noticed them yet, that it was just wandering its own tunnels.

"As I was saying," he whispered only just loud enough for them to hear. "The kishin is in this tunnel. I can't see perfectly, but I can see some," he admitted. "I can also sense its soul, so I don't think we'll be running into it by accident."

"You can sense its soul?" Liz asked, impressed.

"Yeah." he said. "And I could probably do it better if it wasn't so dirty," he said sourly, glaring momentarily at the dirt and then remembering the pews from above. "That church was terrible," he started as he began walking. "It's so messy and unorganized. I should've fixed it."

"That's not important now," the older girl said.

"I should've fixed the pews," he stated. "I should've straightened them."

"We don't have time for that. We're supposed to be looking for the kishin thing. Does it really matter if its dirty?" Liz said, believing he was simply whining.

"I should've fixed the pews," he repeated, his voice becoming shaky. "Maybe I can just do it quickly and then we can come back..."

"Are you serious? That's got nothing to do with the mission at all!" Liz whisper-screamed.

"But they were so disorderly and..." his mind was on nothing else now besides the pews. "...and so _asymmetrical_."

"Oh no no no no no," Liz said. "Don't you start with that 'symmetry' crap again." In the few days she'd been around him, she'd quickly learned that if symmetry was brought up, that this was going to be a problem.

"You don't understand, Elizabeth..." he said, teeth gritted. The picture of the pews in such disarray was far too clear in his mind.

"Just forget about it!" Liz was having a hard time keeping her voice quiet and so it became airy and shrill.

"I can't," he stopped walking suddenly.

"What?" she shrieked. "There is a deadly monster in these tunnels somewhere that, according to your father, eats off people's skin and leaves just their innards, and all you can think about is the goddamn pews?"

Kid just made an uncomfortable noise.

"Forget about it and just keep going," she told him.

"I can't," he said again, starting to back up frantically. "I can't I can't I can't I can't."

"Hold it!" Liz said, suddenly changing in a flash of pinkish light to her human form. "What do you think you're-" but it was in that flash of light that she noticed, just behind Kid, some hulking fleshy shape that wasn't there before. And it was in the moment where Liz paused and her jaw dropped that Kid again began to focus on something other than the pews. It was also here where Kid finally realized that the kishin had been walking slowly behind them without his noticing.

It's breath became more apparent, tired and heavy like a thick, slobbering pant. Kid turned around slowly, light glinting off of his eyes like lighted mirrors. Liz could feel its hot breath now, stinking of the dead. She couldn't see it, but Kid could and it most certainly did not resemble a human. Its flesh had turned gray and translucent, pale blue veins winding their way underneath its skin. Its hair was mostly gone and what was left of it fell like filthy strings around it's face which bore no eyes. It's body was that of an emaciated man with hands the length of at least half his torso, its long bony fingers tipped with huge dirt encrusted claws.

"That," Patty's exhilarated voice sounded so unfitting to the moment. "Is so cool!"

Liz screamed and the beast let out a bone-racking roar.

"Elizabeth!" Kid said demandingly. Liz didn't hesitate in changing to her gun form as quickly as possible. Kid held the two pistols at the ready, but began pacing backwards as the kishin slowly crawled forward rather than shooting. His eyes kept flashing back and forth between the monster before him and the ceiling of the tunnel. The pews were still a mess...

"Kid! Shoot at it or something! Quick!" Liz screamed, panicking.

"The... the pews..." he said.

"Fuck the pews! Do you see that thing right in front of you that's going to kill us?" she couldn't believe what he'd just said. He was going to get them all _killed._ She was sure of it.

"I..."

"Do you really think the pews matter that much?" she shrieked. She could hear her sister laughing next to her. "Am I the only one that understands the seriousness of this situation?"

Kid continued to hesitate for just a moment too long and gave the kishin an opportunity to swipe one of its claws at him. The force sent him several feet backwards and onto the floor.

"Kid!" Liz screamed, genuinely worrying for his life. Even Patty stopped laughing and went quiet. "Kid! Shoot at it! Now!" the older girl ordered.

"The pews..." Kid whispered.

"Forget about the pews!" Liz screamed in such a loud, high voice she could barely be understood.

"Liz! Let's just do this!" Patty said hurriedly.

"I..." Liz wasn't sure what to do in all her panic. Her heart was thudding so hard that Kid could feel it in his grip. "Patty, I..."

"What else do we do!" Patty was becoming frantic as well.

"Kid, just get up!" the older sister said, terror obvious in her voice. "Fix the pews later! Your bleeding all over!"

"I'm, I'm what?" Kid said as though he'd temporarily left the present moment.

"You're bleeding like mad, Kid!" Patty said.

"And I'm on my back... on this dirty nasty floor," he said, his voice becoming angry.

"Yes! And there's a kishin right in front of you about to kill us so shoot it now!" Liz yelled frantically. The kishin slashed again, and with the same claw as before, Kid noted. He pushed himself up so that he was leaning on his hands. The next slash from the Kishin, again with the same hand, he was able to dodge. He jumped up, finally, and then jumped backwards several feet.

"This guy keeps using the same hand. It's bothering me," he grit his teeth. "And he ruined my suit."

"Alright then use that anger and kill it!" Liz urged him.

"Right," Kid said, holding the two pistols at the ready, his arms evenly spaced apart. He then pulled the triggers almost simultaneously and shot a magenta ball of energy from each gun directly at the Kishin. They were larger and stronger than they had been in training. It hit the creature with fairly decent accuracy, sending it stumbling backwards. However, the force of the blast sent both of his hands backwards with an almost painful force.

"Dammit," Kid hissed.

"What?" Liz asked.

"That wasn't simultaneous," he whispered, firing another two shots. "Neither was that one."

He seemed to be keeping the kishin at bay, but the shots weren't doing much actual damage. Not to the kishin, anyway. His wrists were beginning to ache from the force and he couldn't seem to get his hands to grip them tight enough. His hands felt weaker and weaker as each blast lit up the tunnel.

"These shots aren't very powerful," Kid said worriedly. "At this rate, I'll never be able to fixed the pews."

"Would you just forget the pews!" Liz spat, still terrified this boy would end up getting her and her sister killed.

"Our wavelengths aren't in sync enough," Kid said. "These shots aren't going to do a whole lot." As he spoke, the kishin swatted at them again. This time, though, he counteracted with a kick. When it struck again, he blocked it with Patty, shoving the barrel into it's palm. He pulled the trigger in hopes that more direct contact would make it more effective.

The kishin screeched and stumbled backwards, a hole in the center of its hand.

"Okay, so it looks like our shots disperse too much at the moment to cause long range damage," Kid explained, backing up.

"Alright so what do we do?" Liz asked.

"Fight it at close range," he said as he ran directly for the creature. He slammed the side of his foot into it's face before it could slash at him. It sent it crashing into the dirt wall, making everything around them vibrate and causing dirt to become dispatched from the ceiling.

"Could you not make this place cave in?" Liz said.

"I'm trying!" Kid hissed back. "There's not a whole lot I can do about it!" he yelled as the kishin grabbed his ankle while he was distracted by Liz and threw him down to the end of the tunnel.

More dirt fell from the ceiling as the whole place shook. Kid made a strange snarling noise as he pushed himself off the ground. The kishin charged at him on all fours, screeching and squealing with it's wrinkly mouth dripping with saliva. Before he could pick himself up, the beast was slashing at him from above.

"You two! Go!" he growled, throwing the two pistols away after shooting at it had done nothing to deter it from attacking him. They were still too weak. "Your resonance is better! Go!"

Patty changed first and snatched her sister from the ground. She shot at the creature with more powerful shots, ones that came from a deep understanding the two shared for each other. "Take that, ya' cum dumpster!" Patty yelled in the most terrifying voice Kid had ever heard. The shots blasted away pieces of the kishin's flesh, sending it writhing on the floor and letting Kid ease himself to his feet. He stumbled for a moment, but eventually steadied himself and sent a kick down into the kishin's head, drilling it into the dirt.

Patty kept shooting erratically until, even after that kick and all of its missing pieces, it staggered over to her and slashed an enormous claw at her. It was slow enough that she was able to change into gun form again and let her sister take control.

Liz shot with more accuracy and with more dexterity. She was far more precise than her sister. She aimed for it's arms and shot them off. It fell forward onto its eyeless face, yelling and screaming in the most horrific way as blood poured from it's shoulders.

It started to push itself up with it's neck, momentarily balancing on its head. It eventually managed to stand itself up on two legs, as unstable as it might be, and ran at Liz. It backed her up into a corner of the tunnel, slamming its head into the wall above her to keep itself steady. Thick saliva dripped from its mouth and onto her hair.

It was removed from her way almost immediately, though, by Kid's foot which threw it to the side and onto the floor again. It squirmed and kicked in its disorientation, pitifully rolling around in a way that was strangely sickening.

"Kid, you finish it!" Liz yelled as she changed into a gun again. He caught both sisters with ease and fired a shot directly at the kishin's mutated head. These shots were, somehow, more powerful than before and manage to blast straight through its head. It shrieked, the top of its head now gone into mist.

"You just shot off it's head! Why is it still moving?" Patty yelled, watching the deformed creature writhe on the ground.

"It takes a couple seconds to die sometimes," he said, still shooting. "It's pretty much dead though."

"How do you know when-" she never finished her question as it was answered for her. With one last shot, the entire being seemed to burn into mist and disappear, leaving behind a glowing red orb. For the few seconds after it was gone, neither of the girls quite believed it. It just didn't quite register with them that it was truly gone. There was something in both of them that for some reason believed it might come back.

"There," Kid said, satisfied. He lowered the two smoking pistols. "That, ladies, is a Kishin soul," he said proudly.

"Oh my god, I'm just glad its dead," Liz let out a relieved breath.

"That was so fricken awesome!" Patty squealed in triumph.

"Now," Kid sounded out of breath. "Normally in this situation, the weapon would get to take the soul, but since there are too of you and you can't exactly split a soul in half..."

"Patty can take it," Liz said immediately. There was a brief second of silence.

"It would be asymmetrical and unbalanced if one of you had a soul and the other didn't." Kid explained. "I think I'm just going to collect this one myself and take it to Father. Next time, though, I'll make sure you both get a soul. That is, if you still wish to be my weapons."

"Why wouldn't we want to be?" Patty said as Kid took the soul in his hand. Kid looked confused.

"That was incredibly flawed and its entirely because of me," he said, his voice tired.

"It wasn't _all _your fault," Liz said sympathetically. "It also wasn't that bad. It could've been worse."

Kid didn't respond as he collected the soul. Liz and Patty watched with interest as it disappeared into his hand in a tiny vortex of skulls and black fire, lighted by the red glow of the tainted soul.

"It could've been done better. I could've done more." he said. "It wasn't perfect."

"It was our first mission. Of course it wasn't perfect." Liz said. "It'll be better next time."

"I guess," he spoke in such a disappointed voice that there was nothing left to say. He insisted on beating himself up over every little detail. No matter what, perfection was the only thing he'd accept.

* * *

><p>It was three o'clock in the morning when the finally got back to Death City. They'd left immediately after Kid had fixed the church to the best of his abilities. The flight home had felt quicker to them this time, perhaps because the girls kept falling asleep. However, they were awaken by Kid when he landed and rolled onto the stony walkway of the Gallows Mansion.<p>

They changed back into their human forms looking quite tired. They stretched and groaned and neither of them opened their eyes completely. Kid was in a similar state, not even bothering to fix his wind-whipped hair. He rubbed the back up his head, and the three of them walked up the path slowly and quietly. None of them had the energy to talk at the moment.

It wasn't until nearly a half hour later that any of them spoke, and, given the circumstances, it was a very odd instance to be speaking. Kid had taken his time getting ready for bed as he always did. He'd gone through the entire house making sure all of the picture frames were straight, all of the toilet paper in all eight bathrooms had their tips folded into triangles, and that all of the candles were the proper lengths. Though he was not as thorough as normal through his fatigue. He wouldn't be able to sleep if he felt the house wasn't neat. It didn't matter how tired he was. It just wouldn't happen.

He'd noticed, after the very last painting had been straightened and he was going upstairs, that someone was outside. He'd seen them out of the corner of his eye through a window in the front room. After a second look, he saw it was Liz. He'd figured she'd gone to bed already.

He opened the front door, his blazer off and his suspenders around his thighs, and stepped into the cold of the night. Liz turned at the sound of squeaking hinges as well as two lights above the doors she hadn't known to be there being flicked on.

"What are you still doing up?" he asked. He noticed soon after speaking, though, that there was a lit cigarette in between her fingers.

"I'll be in a minute," she said, her voice crackling slightly with her exhaustion.

"Are you alright?" he asked, sounding concerned and almost surprised.

"Um, yeah?" She answered as she took another drag on her cigarette. She sounded offended.

"Your soul seems nervous," he told her. "Are you sure?"

"I said I'm fine, Kid." She was irritated, defensive. It was clear Kid didn't believe her as he sat down on the steps with her. He didn't say anything and they sat in silence for several strangely comfortable moments before Liz noticed something.

"Your wounds are all healed," she said, staring at the bloody rips in his shirt that no longer correlated with the skin underneath.

"Yeah," he said, glancing down at his own chest even though he knew what wasn't there. "I healed on the way back."

"So you heal that fast?" Liz asked as she blew a stream of smoke from her mouth. "Jeez, you're lucky."

"I suppose, yes," he agreed.

"And you can see in the dark. And you can see souls." she listed. "Any other freaky things I should know?"

Kid gave a quick amused smile coupled with a small, awkward, laugh. "Um, I don't think so." He tugged at his skull rings. "Well, there _are_ other things, but they're not really the same."

"Like what?" she asked. "I mean, like, if I'm gonna be your weapon, I should know, right?"

"Ah," he said as he looked up at the starry sky he rubbed his hands together. "My skin doesn't burn or tan. I suppose that's something."

"That's why your so pasty?" she concluded. "I could _not _deal with not being able to get a tan. Having a tan is just like, something people _do_. I'd look bad with pale skin. I mean, it's not like I've ever actually gone tanning or anything since me and Patty didn't have the money, but we were outside most of the time so we did get a pretty decent tan for being in the city."

"I don't know that you'd look _bad _pale," Kid said.

"Tch. Trust me. I would," she dragged on her cigarette. "I usually hate it when people are pasty. They look all veiny and crap. It's weird. No offense. I hate it when people have a really gross looking tan, too though. It looks trashy. Makes you look like a whore, y'know?"

Kid nodded, not sure what to say to this type of talk.

"Me 'n Patty don't do that crap. I never wanted us to end up like that. I always said whatever happened to us, we'd _never_ be like trashy whores." she continued. "I just don't want us being associated with those kinda people anymore." She sounded a little defensive at the end, like she was making an excuse and like she was expecting Kid to question her.

"I don't know why anyone would," he said.

"Neither do I," Liz said, short clips of memories of her mother flashing through her mind. "We're never going to be like Mom," she whispered. She didn't say it directly, but he understood what she meant.

"She abandoned me 'n Patty." she said. Kid wasn't sure why she was telling him this. "I hate her. I havn't seen her since I was twelve and Patty was ten. She could barely take care of herself, let alone two kids. We were better off without her anyway."

Kid nodded unsure how to respond. When he didn't say anything, she continued.

"She was almost never around and she would leave us alone for three days straight sometimes. There was never any running water in the apartment 'cause she never paid the bills. All the kids at school made fun of us and called us scumbags 'cause we couldn't take showers half the time. That's why we never really went. We just completely stopped going after a while," she seemed to be lost in her thoughts, the words just coming out as soon as they appeared.

"Once we figured out we were weapons we decided we could take care of ourselves and started stealing from people. After a while, Mom told us she couldn't take care of us no more, so she told us to leave. It didn't matter. It's not like she ever actually took care of us anyway." her voice was getting quieter and shakier. Kid could feel her hurt in her soul and had no idea what to do.

"Why am I telling you this anyway?" she laughed a little. "S'not like you'd understand."

"That's not true," he said immediately.

"How? Your a spoiled brat. What would you know?" she said sourly. His eyebrows scrunched slightly.

"My father is The Grim Reaper. He's not exactly home that often. I don't go to school like most kids do and I rarely leave this house for any other reason besides missions," he said. Now that he was the one speaking, he understood why she'd told him. "I was left home by myself for the most part, accept for a nanny every once in a while. They never stayed long, though. They couldn't deal with my... my tendencies. I've never had any friends before." He took a breath, feeling his voice becoming more energetic than he'd like. "I might not have had to grown up on the streets, but I understand. I really do."

Liz was quiet for a few seconds. "I just don't want us to end up like her."

"You wont have to now, though," he said. "Your lives can be better here."

"Yeah..." Liz said quietly. She looked at the ground and didn't speak.

"Your soul is guilty now," Kid whispered.

"Maybe your soul thingy sucks, then," she snapped. She was being defensive again. Kid was quiet.

"I'm just trying to be nice," he said eventually.

"Well, could you stop reading me like that? It's pissing me off," she growled as she stuck the cigarette in her mouth and folded her arms.

"Sorry. I'm not around humans much. I forget sometimes," he apologized.

"You say that like your better than humans," she said. "But your not. Hell, if it weren't for all of your freaky powers, you'd be just like any other rich brat. We'd have just mugged you and you'd of run home crying to your daddy and nothing woulda happened."

Kid wet his lips. "Would you rather I'd left you both there?" he asked. There was a long pause as Liz thought it over.

"No." she said. "Of course not."

"You're guilty again." he said.

"Stop doing that!" she said as she leaned over and punched him in the arm. It didn't hurt him, but he wasn't sure if it was meant playfully or not.

"Sorry. I can't help it. Shutting it off takes concentration," he said apologetically.

"Well, you could just not announce it," she said. "You act like a no-it-all and you don't know anything."

"It's my natural ability as a shiningami to be able to read emotions." It was his turn to be insulted. "So in this case, I do know."

"Whatever. I don't care." She took the cigarette out of her mouth and held it, letting the smoke trail up around her face.

He could tell that that was a lie, but didn't push it. He didn't want to make her angry. He was trying to make a good impression. There was another long moment of silence, this one much less comfortable. Kid contemplated going inside briefly, thinking it might just be best to leave her alone and go to bed. His eyes very much liked that option. He was having a hard time keeping them open.

"It's okay, you know," he said eventually. "I'm not going to judge you for anything. Your soul isn't evil and no one is free of malice. There is no such thing as anyone who is perfectly innocent."

She didn't look at him. She just watched the smoke stream from her cigarette.

"I want to change," she said. "I want to leave that whole life behind and I want to be better. I want Patty to live better."

"Then this is your best opportunity," Kid said. "You don't have to go back."

"I can't believe we're really just being saved by some spoiled brat." she said. "This just isn't the type of thing you'd ever think would happen."

"So you _are_ going to stay?" he asked.

"Yeah." she said. "We're staying."

They didn't speak again for a while. Liz's cigarette was eventually thrown to the ground and the sky began to fade into a blueish gray. The stars started to fade and the moon was disappearing into the horizon. The glow of the sun stated to take hold of the city, bringing warmth and light. They would probably end up sleeping all day that day, but they didn't mind.

Liz leaned up against the railing on one side of the stairs and Kid leaned against the other. If Kid were slightly more conscious, he'd have marveled at their symmetry. And if Patty hadn't burst through the front doors demanding breakfast and entertainment, they'd have slept there all day.

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><p><em>AN: That was soooooooo much longer than I planned xD I feel like it almost could have been two chapters... Anyway, that concludes the opening thing. I hope you liked it. The rest should be random one-shots. Hopefully more with Patty because I feel like I left her out a little bit. :/ though, they're not TOO random. they still go in an order... I guess I just mean they're not directly connected. _


	4. Perfection

_A/N: **EDIT: THiS HAS BEEN FiXED! Sorry for posting it and then taking it down... I posted it late at night when it wasn't quite finished and then when I woke up I was all "OH MY GOD! why did I post that!" but then I had to wait a day because we had no internet (or phone or cable) because of stupid not-really-a-hurricane-by-the-time-it-got-here-but-still-mangaed-to-cause-an-inconvenience Irene. But now it's better. YAY! though I'm still not really satisfied with it... I don't think I'll ever be, though, so I might as well just post it and forget bout it.**_

_HOORAY FOR THE FIRST ACTUAL ONE-SHOT OF MY ONE-SHOT COLLECTION!_

_Oh and um, I'm sorry there are so many typos in these stories. I do most of my writing between 12:00 am and 2:00 am, so I make a lot of mistakes on the raw version and sometimes I don't get them all when I proofread. sorry. _

_I don't own SoulEater._

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><p>There was a short curved staircase behind a door in the Gallows Mansion which led down into a small room with a fireplace and no windows. The walls were lined with bookshelves, all of their contents arranged perfectly symmetrically. There were two large armchairs covered in a faded gray and black pattern made up of symmetrical flower-like images and a red hearth rug taking up most of the space in the room before a second identical winding staircase led out of the room through a different door.<p>

The perfectly symmetrical room, though, that lay between the two staircases was divided from them by thick walls. Within these walls in one of the faded gray and black chairs beside the fireplace sat a pale boy with a book clutched in his hands. The lack of windows in the room made it a cave in which time disappeared. The only clock was his internal one which he'd become very good at ignoring.

It was for this reason that the boy sat so comfortably unaware of the world, his bangs falling in his face and obscuring his eyes from view. This was the most comfortable room in the house, its flawless symmetry keeping him at constant ease and the books keeping him entertained.

His training was done for the day. He'd already made breakfast for both himself and his partners. He had nothing to do besides sit here. He would read as long as he could, he'd decided. Reading was one of his favorite things to do. Though, he never read anything particularly imaginative. He preferred non-fiction, something precise and exact. He liked learning, studying. It made him feel fulfilled and like he lived up to the high standards of intelligence the rest of the world constantly imposed on him. It made him feel strangely comfortable in the same way perfect order did.

Perfection was everything to him. There was nothing greater in this world to him than creating and executing flawlessness. His mannerisms were done to a tee, his bows always the correct angle and depth for the situation and his speech patterns were always grammatically correct. He was sophisticated and aristocratic, well trained at being a gentlemen. His status was shown in every aspect of his life, as he believed it should be. He therefore spent any time he had increasing his knowledge and making everything as neat as it could be. Practice makes perfect. Perfection is key. Everything had to be perfectly perfect.

_Kicchiri Kacchiri_

He'd been sitting in this room for longer than he realized, though, which is why the thumping footsteps that suddenly appeared on the stairs momentarily alarmed him. He looked up, golden eyes peering through striped fringe, just in time to see a blonde girl lunge at him.

The boy was flustered and the girl was amused, her arms wrapped around him in tight, possibly lethal, hug. "I found you, Kiddo!" she sang.

"I wasn't aware I was lost," he choked out.

"Don't kill him, Patty. We're keeping this one," came the voice of a taller girl with longer, darker blonde hair.

"Sowwy," Patty said innocently, letting go of the younger boy. He took in a deep breath upon being released from her death-hug.

"We've been looking all over for you and we finally found you in _here_?" Liz said disbelievingly. "Jeez, Kid, you need to get out more." She walked toward him and snatched the book from his hands.

"Hey! That was important!" Kid snapped. Liz examined it and thoroughly concluded that this was not so. She handed it to her sister who was seated on the arm of his chair.

"Kid, you don't do anything besides train, read, and clean," she told him, counting it out on her fingers.

"And clean more!" Patty added.

"Right," she agreed. "This is a problem. I refuse to have a boring meister."

"I'm not boring," Kid defended.

"No. You're too crazy to be completely boring," she said. "But you never _do _anything. You never leave the house."

"You have no life," Patty concluded in a sweet voice.

"I _always _read at this time of day on Saturday," Kid told them sternly. "Always."

"Then why don't you do something else for once?" the eldest enquired.

"Never," he said flatly.

"Why the hell not?" she leaned on the arms of the chair so her face was quite close to his.

"There has to be order. Doing things that are unplanned..." he trailed off, nervously looking to the side.

"Is fun!" Patty finished the sentence for him.

"No. Its potentially deadly," he said very seriously. "Order is like symmetry. It's absolutely necessary for existence."

Liz sighed and pushed herself off the chair. "Is this 'symmetry and order' thing going to be a constant thing with you?"

"Yes," he said, taking the book out of Patty's hands. "Now, if you'll excuse me..."

Patty got off of the chair's arm and looked irritably at her sister. Liz rolled her eyes and made a slight sneer with her mouth. Patty's shoulder's slumped and her face looked disbelieving and quite irked. Liz's eyes widened in response and her hand flicked up slightly, her shoulders shrugging. Patty crossed her arms and smirked maliciously. Liz returned the expression. Kid just watched their silent conversation with confusion. They then turned their attention to him, eyeing him mischievously for a few seconds before each sister grabbed one of his wrists. They pulled him out of the chair and, despite his angry protests, dragged him up the short curved staircase and out the door.

The two girls pulled him down the hallway as he yelled, "No! I can't change my routine! I can't! I'll die! I'm going to die! You're going to kill me! You're killing me!"

Patty laughed and giggled and the whole time, her hand clutching his tightly no matter how much he struggled. Liz was becoming more irritated, her hand around his pale wrist.

"Would you calm down?" she demanded.

"No! You don't know what you're doing!" he yelled, trying to pull back. Panic swelled in chest, restricting his lungs and making him choke.

"It'll be fun! Come on," Patty said happily.

"I'm going to die!" he shrieked. "How is that fun?"

"You are not going to die," she hissed through his panicking. "Doing something different for a change isn't going to kill you. Stop being so overdramatic."

"I'm not being overdramatic! I'm going to die!" He said as he finally released himself from at least Patty's grip by slipping his hand out of hers. He turned and tried to run away, but ended up having to struggle against Liz and it became a tug of war. "Let go. Let go!" he insisted. It wasn't until now that she was facing him that Liz noticed that there were tears on his face and his eyes were bloodshot.

"Are you serious, right now? I'm not going to feel bad for you just because you're crying, you know!" Liz told him. "Quit being a brat!"

Kid wrapped his free hand around his arm and started pulling harder. "I'm not! I'm really going to die. I can't. I can't!" he sobbed.

Patty began helping the older girl by grabbing onto his wrist as well. With the added force, being that Patty was much stronger than her sister when it came to upper body strength, Kid began to lose. The only reason he'd been able to free himself before was because of her awkward grip.

"I hate you!" he whimpered with his hair hanging in his eyes. "You're idiots. Let me go."

"No!" Patty said, giving one final hard tug that sent him falling on his face. Kid did not get up. He just lay on the hard floor of the mansion without speaking.

"We're just trying to get you to do something fun," Liz said as she leant down next to him. "It's not that huge of a thing. You don't have to make such a big deal out of it."

"No. My whole day is ruined now. It'll never be better," he mumbled into the floor.

Liz rolled her eyes. "You're being ridiculous." Kid let out a frustrated and distressed, whining, groan.

"C'mon. Get up," Liz told him. Kid shook his head, still crying into the black and white tiles.

"Kid..." she said through her teeth. Patty was behind her twirling and singing under her breath, not paying attention or seeming to care.

"I can't," he said to the floor. "I can't do anything now."

"Why?" she asked disbelievingly and quite irritatedly.

"Because you messed up my schedule," he said. "I'll never be able to go on like this."

"Fine. Then go back and read your stupid boring book. See if I care," Liz crossed her arms.

"I can't now. It's already too messed up," he whined with his face still pressed into the floor.

"Do you have to do this?" Liz sighed exasperatedly. "You're being so stupid."

"No. You could've killed me," he accused, finally moving and curling up on his side. He hugged his knees to his chest, scrunching his trousers in his shaking fingertips.

"How would have going out and doing something fun have killed you?" she demanded.

"It just would've. I don't know," Kid said, pulling his knees tighter. "It's disorderly."

Liz let out a breath, trying to keep herself calm. She wasn't sure what to make of Kid's apparent problem. The way he panicked and was thrown into fits of anxiety due to such small things made her wonder just why he did it. Initially, she'd assumed it was for attention, that because he was so spoiled, he'd learn to get what he wanted by crying. However, if this was the case, she realized, he was very _very _good at it. She wasn't sure what to think of the hyperventilating boy on the floor in front of her. It worried her if he truly felt he would die, or deserved to, for doing something out of the ordinary.

"God, why are you so anal about everything?" she said, her eyes momentarily widening in frustration. "You're like, OCD or something."

"No I'm not!" He practically yelled into his knees. He sounded insulted and sort of like this wasn't the first time he'd said it.

"What's OCD?" Patty asked, ceasing her mindless dancing.

"It just means he's really touchy about shit being neat," Liz explained simply.

"That's not what it means," Kid snapped, moving so that he was sitting up against the wall. He had a little bit of blood trickling from his nose, but he didn't seem to notice. "OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder," he stated.

"I know that!" Liz said quickly.

"Then you're implying that a death god, a god of _order_, has a _dis_order," he hissed. "That's entirely illogical and completely rude to say."

His eyes were angry and intense, his strange irises and dilated pupils making him look manic. Those eyes had always intrigued both girls. The pupil was the same as any other eye, but he seemed to have two irises. There was a normal one that was a bronze color surrounding his pupil, but then there was another one around that one that was a lighter more golden color. Both irises dilated together, but in different ways. The outer would grow larger and smaller with his pupil, where the inner would appear to do the opposite. It made his eyes look large, strangely so. It seemed very unnatural and disturbing at first. Seeing him at night, with his shadowy silhouette and eyes glazed over with yellow light, made him appear like a ghost. It had frightened Liz in the middle of the night when she'd happened to get up to use the bathroom the same time he'd gone to get a glass of water. They were very likely his most terrifying feature.

It was because of these eyes that they hesitated in responding, for fear of him lashing out. They glued their tongues to the roofs of their mouths and prevented them from speaking. With all of his neurotic behavior, which Patty found so amusing, and all of his kindness towards them, they so far had not seen him as frightening. It was especially strange considering he'd been crying just a few seconds before. Now, though, there was nothing in his face that resembled someone who'd been crying. However, Liz was aware that he still looked hurt.

"I didn't mean it like that," she said eventually. It was technically true. She hadn't meant it like that at first. However, now that she'd thought about it, it was entirely fitting. After all, he seemed to have the _obsessive compulsion _to keep everything symmetrical and neat. He also seemed to think he was going to die if he strayed from his daily schedule. That was most certainly not normal behavior for anyone and it was something that made her worry about him. She found herself wanting to help him. "But you really are obsessive about this crap. You need to relax."

"You're implying that I have a problem," he stated. Liz stared at him, letting his words sink in to both her own mind and, hopefully, his.

"You're on the floor crying and thinking you're going to die because we messed up your schedule," she said monotonously. Kid had no response.

"We're going to help you. Come on," she said after a few seconds.

"No," he put his face in his knees.

"Yes," she said. "Patty, help me."

"Kay!" Patty complied excitedly. They grabbed his arms again and tried to make him get up. He was being more stubborn this time, though, and managed to hold his ground.

"Kid, you have a serious problem. We're trying to help you," Liz said firmly.

"Yeah." Patty agreed. "For someone who likes balance so much, you're really messed up." Kid blinked, looking at Patty for a moment as he contemplated what she'd just said. Liz looked at her sister, a slightly astonished look on her face for only a second before it turned to a smile. She'd said something that made sense for once and had summed up everything they were both thinking so easily.

"As per usual, Patty, you have no idea what you're talking about," he said, standing and brushing himself off. Liz's face fell into a glare. Patty's face looked violently angry, her eyes furious and threatening.

Kid returned the glare, but they ignored it. Liz stood, her height giving her a new advantage. "Oh, what? Are we making you admit you aren't perfect too many times today? You might technically be a god, but as far as I'm concerned, you're just as human as anyone else."

His eyes looked furious and his lip curled slightly, showing his teeth. He didn't say anything, though, nor did he do anything rash. He just glared at her for a moment longer before turning on his heel and stalking down the hallway and back to the short curved staircase behind a door in the Gallow's Mansion.

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><p><em>AN: __I think a good summary for this could have been "In which Kid is stubborn and progress may or may not have been made."_

_The thing about Kid's eyes is just me over thinking things. I do that a lot. Don't take it too seriously. I'm pretty sure Kid's weird eyes are actually just from stylizing and the rings have no real significance. But this is my fic so leave me alone. _

_Oh and I've concluded Kid is a Capricorn and Patty is a Gemini. I'm not sure about Liz. I think she might be a Cancer but I don't know. (yes this is relevant because there are going to be chapters about their birthdays) Tsubaki is a Virgo, BlackStar is either a Taurus or a Leo, Maka I think is a Libra, and Soul... I'm not sure about Soul either. I don't know. I'm probably going to end up changing these. I'd like your opinions on them though so that I can do these fics. (again with my over thinking things) However, Kid is most certainly a Capricorn and Patty is most certainly a Gemini. Those ones wont change, even if you try to convince me otherwise._

_Reviews make me happy. _


	5. Fear

_A/N: I'm going back to school tomorrw and wont have much time to write new chapters anymore. I don't think I've actually ever written as much has I have this summer. It's really odd for me to update that consistently. Actually, its just odd for me to write. I usually spend all my time drawing and I barely spent any time on that at all. I'm a little disappointed in myself..._

_I'm going to try very hard to update this as much as I possibly can, though. I already have three pieces started and one of them that's finished. (The one that's finished now I REALLY wish I could post because it's a little bit awesome in my opinion, but it doesn't fit into the timeline yet.) Anyway, I'm just warning you that updates will, unfortunately, be me sporadic after this point._

_I don't own Soul Eater._

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><p>The mission had not gone well. He knew it hadn't. So did she.<p>

He filled the tea kettle with water silently, the rushing water splashing into the metal the only noise in the entire kitchen. He placed the kettle on the burner with a soft _clack _and then turned the knob to high. He then took three mugs from the cupboard above the stove and placed them down on the counter. He sat teabags inside two of them, one earl grey and one a spice blend, and filled the third with a spoonful of cocoa mix.

Once this was finished, he had nothing more to do than wait. He sat down at the kitchen table across from her and did not speak. He watched her long damp hair drip onto the tabletop as she played with the tie on her bathrobe. He took in a deep breath and ran a thumb over the back of his hand and his middle finger. His rings were on his dresser upstairs.

He could feel water from his own hair dripping down his nose. He watched it fall onto his pale hand and trail over his skin. He wished he had words. He wished he could speak without first being contemplative. He wished he knew what exactly was bothering her so that he could at least begin to figure out what to say.

He looked up at her again. She'd turned her head to stare at the teakettle, or perhaps at nothing. She looked far off. Her hair looked practically brown under the weight of the now cold water. It made her eyes look that much bluer. Her nose was awkward, but that was okay. It was likely from being broken once or twice. She had scars, too, on her face and what he could see of her chest, little nicks and scratches from different struggles. Her collarbone was very prominent and there were dark circles under her eyes that were usually covered by makeup. She normally wore a thick layer of foundation and concealer and eyeliner and mascara. That had all come off in the shower.

He stared at her collarbone. Her sister's wasn't like that.

"You're staring at my boobs again, Kid," she said suddenly. He hadn't noticed that she'd turned to look at him.

"No, I wasn't," he said quickly, making sure to turn his attention to her eyes.

"Whatever," she said as she wrapped her blue fleece bathrobe around herself more tightly and crossed her arms.

She watched him look down at his lap, hands now folded on the table. She was always amazed at how pale his skin was, enough so that, in this artificial light, the veins on his hands were fairly prominent. They were like that around his neck and chest too. It amazed her as well that he did not look grotesque in spite of this. His skin was still so pale, though, like bone. It was somehow beautiful in a way she'd never thought of before. His features were elven and dignified, though he still looked very young. His age was clear in that his face was still slightly rounded. He was only a boy, but he might be handsome someday. Right now, though, he was full of contradictions.

He plucked at the fibers of his black terrycloth bathrobe. His pajamas underneath were white button-downs with red pinstripes. He was even dressy when he slept.

All she wore was a tank top and cotton pants, but that was what she chose. It was comfortable and that was all she cared about.

How was it that the teenage boy was the more elegant one?

On the stove, the teakettle began to rattle as the water began to fill with energy. It wasn't near ready yet, though. It was loud in the middle and then quiet when it was about to boil.

"Are you going to tell me what's bothering you?" he said abruptly, only turning his eyes upward to peer at her and not moving his head. Those golden double-ringed irises then darted back down to look at his hands. He examined them for a moment more before folding them on the table and then focusing all of his attention on her.

She sighed and her eyebrows scrunched. "You already know," she said quietly. "You were there."

He nodded and looked to the side.

"It was my fault," she said. Her voice was left to ring in the silence for several moments before he spoke again.

"Not entirely," he said finally.

"Yes it was. You know it was." She could tell by his hesitation.

"We still managed to collect the kishin egg, though," he said hopefully. "It was only bad for a minute or two."

"And that was my fault," she said. "Because I was afraid."

"That's normal. It's fine," he said. "I'm not mad at you for it and neither is Patty."

The water in the tea kettle was becoming slightly more audible.

"But it happens constantly. I'm always the one that's scared. I hate it," she said. "You might have your symmetry issues, but that doesn't happen on every mission. And you've been getting better. I haven't."

"I said its fine," he repeated.

She wasn't looking at him anymore. Instead, she was looking at her hands with her head down. Her damp hair was hanging in front of her face, casting a shadow over most of it. He couldn't see her eyes.

"It's not fine," she said. "I hate being afraid."

"Most people do," he said. "That's normal as well."

"But I'm always afraid." He could see her eyebrows tighten. "That's all I've ever been all my life and I'm sick of it."

"Fear makes you human," he said sternly.

"Patty isn't ever afraid," she said.

"Yes she is," he told her reassuringly. "I can feel it. But she blocks it out."

"She's brave," she said. "I'm not."

"Of course you are," he said. "You wouldn't be alive if you weren't."

"Im always afraid of everything," she said again. He didn't say anything. He took a moment to think first. She constantly admired how thoughtful he was.

"That might be true sometimes," he said. Negative emotions welled in her chest until he spoke again. "But you get through it all in spite of that fear. Like I said, it's fine."

There was a time of emptiness where the only noise was the teakettle as it began to grow louder and louder. It was becoming much more prominent in the room, drowning them in shaking noise.

"I'm just so tired of having to force myself, though." she said. "I'd do anything not to be like this."

"Liz," he said sharply. His eyes were intense and locked to hers. For a moment, he looked less like a boy and much more mature. "Fear makes you human. It's what lets you know you're sane. You need to have it. It's important. It's natural. There isn't anything wrong with being fearful."

He looked, to her surprise, almost angry with her. He wouldn't remove his eyes from her, looking for any sign that she understood. She looked down again.

"I just wish I didn't have to be so..." she trailed off. "I feel like a burden sometimes."

"But you're not," he insisted. "There is nothing wrong with how you are."

When she didn't say anything, he continued. "Do you know how kishin are born?"

She looked up.

"It is most common for them to be created from a human who wishes to free themselves of fear," he said very seriously. "Fear is human. Don't let go of it. Don't try to get rid of it. Over come it the best you can, but don't let yourself stop feeling it. This is the most important thing you can do for yourself. It's what my father and the academy highlight most in their teachings. It's quite possibly the very first lesson I was ever taught. It does not make you imperfect and it most certainly doesn't make you a burden."

She wet her lips as she stared at him with wide eyes. The teakettle was becoming very loud. There were no words on her tongue. Her mind was blank. She had no idea what to think.

"Please don't be mad at yourself," he said. "Please don't become someone who beats themselves up over every little thing. It's alright that you're afraid sometimes. It's pretty much the only thing I've ever seen you stress over. You and you're sister, you're both so relaxed and open and confident. It's something I'll never be able to achieve."

He cut himself off suddenly and took a deep breath. He was saying more than he wanted to. He was getting off track. He made himself stop speaking. He didn't want to make this about himself.

She looked astonished, any words that may have begun to form were lost. She never thought of him having any admiration for her. She always felt like she and her sister, two street rats, could never have any qualities he might want for himself. She would have never imagined that he desired to be any less than he was. Of course, she realized, that was a bit ridiculous. She finally knew what she wanted to say just as the tea kettle went quiet.

"Then you have to promise that you will too," she said.

He looked confused.

"Try not to get mad at yourself for possibly forgetting something stupid," she explained. "If it's alright for me to be imperfect, then its alright for you too."

The water came to a boil, announcing itself with an abrupt scream. He stood, walked over to the stove, and removed the kettle from the burner immediately to quiet its tantrum. He turned the dial back to OFF and poured the steaming water into the three mugs, making sure it was evenly distributed between the three.

He opened the drawer below the countertop and pulled out three teaspoons. He pushed it shut with his hip and placed a spoon in each cup, silver clattering on porcelain as they were dropped in. He opened a cupboard above his head a pulled out a silver tea tray upon which he placed all three mugs. He put the small bowl of sugar they kept on the counter on the tray as well.

"Kid," she said, hoping he was still in the conversation.

"I'll try," he said as he opened the fridge and pulled out the milk carton. He went over to another cupboard which held dishes meant for special occasions and pulled out a silver milk pitcher which matched the mugs and sugar bowl. "I want to. I swear." He poured milk into the pitcher and then placed it on the tray. "But this isn't about me. I really just want you to understand that fear is not a bad thing."

He brought the tray over to the table once it was set. He put it down in the precise middle.

"I know," she said. "But it'd be good for you too."

"I don't want you to become a kishin," he said with concern predominant in his voice as he sat down again.

"I wont. I wont ever do something like that," she said. "I don't want my fear to go away. That's not what I meant. I just wish I was more..." she paused. "I wish I was more brave."

"I wish I could just ignore certain things," he said. He took his tea off the tray and began stir it aimlessly. She took her own as well.

She took her sister's mug too and began to mix the cocoa powder in for her. She would be out of the shower soon. She poured milk into the cocoa, watching the white swirl into the rich brown and turn it pale. She did the same to her own tea, the strong smell of spices rising from it as it brewed.

"You drink tea like my dad does," he commented, his head resting on his hand. He looked young again when he said it.

"I think you've told me that before," she said, adjusting her bathrobe and pulling the sugar bowl from the tray. She spooned some of it into her tea before replacing it.

"Probably," he said. There was a moment of comfortable silence following as he took the sugar as well and mixed some into his own mug.

"I promise I'll never become a kishin," she said determinedly. "Ever."

"Thank you," he said. "I don't want to see something awful like that happen to you. The same goes to Patty. You're the first real friends I've ever had and I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Aww, you're so sweet," she sniggered.

"I'm serious," he said.

"I know. I know. I am too," she regained her composure. "And thank you. A lot. No one's ever said that kind of thing to me before, and I honestly never thought they would. I'm awful at being mushy, but I do appreciate it. I promise. Thank you."

"You're welcome then, I guess." He looked slightly confused, or possibly abashed. She smiled. She never thought she'd be getting a lecture from someone four years younger than her that made so much sense. She also never thought she'd be so important to someone, or have someone who was so important to her.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I tried to make that touching without being... unrealistic. Most people, I feel like, do not romanticize everything they say into something incredibly heartfelt and adorable, even if they're trying to express something very important. I'm trying to make them feel like people and not just characters. I hope I got at least sort of close._

_I also don't know why I decided to use only pronouns, but it did get annoying at the end. I kept having to correct myself._

_I'm sorry that was so short._

_Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go pluck me eyebrows because I don't have an OCD kid to do it for me..._

_Review...?_


	6. The Cut

_A/N: This is based off of the line in the manga after Kid, Soul, and BlackStar's fight where it says something along the lines of "After that, Kid spent a week in bed and took a month off of school just after starting. Since then, he's also been getting counseling."_

_This is also partly about how Kid, Liz and Patty actually became friends with Maka, Tsubaki, Soul, and BlackStar since they never really go over that. It pretty much just seems like they try to kill each other and then they're friend. lol_

_I Don't Own Soul Eater_

* * *

><p>"Kid! Are you up yet? We're going to be late!" Liz called while pounding on his bedroom door. When there was no response, she tried again. "Kid! Come on!"<p>

"No!" came his muffled response. "I'm not going!"

"What?" she slammed the door open upon hearing that. "Why the hell not?"

Kid was lying in his oversized bed, still in his pajamas, buried by the covers with his head being held beneath one of his eight pillows. His face was buried in a different pillow, so when he responded she couldn't understand him.

"What?" she asked walking over to the bed. He turned his head slightly so that his mouth was no longer obstructed by his bedding.

"Because I'm hideous!" he said quickly before burying his face again.

"Why? Because of your hair?" she asked, her voice a little bit mocking. Kid nodded into his pillow. Liz sighed. "That's a stupid reason not to go to school."

"It's a perfect reason not to go!" he shrieked, pushing himself up so that he was sitting and facing her. "Look at how awful I look!" Liz took a moment to examine him thoroughly. His hair was matted and frizzy from his being in bed so long (he hadn't left it since they'd brought him home the previous afternoon) and his eyes were red and puffy like he'd been crying. His pajamas were quite disheveled and his face was contorted into something pitifully sad. The missing part of his bangs was noticeable, but as far as she was concerned, it wasn't bad enough to constitute as something that should keep him from school.

"Yes. You look terrible. Because you look like you've been rolling around in your bed crying for twelve hours straight," she said irritably. "Now get up, comb your hair and wash your face. We have to go to school."

"No." He flopped back down face first into his pillows.

"Ngh. Fine. Be that way," she said as she walked toward the door. "Me and Patty are just gonna go without you then," and she slammed the door behind her. Kid just stayed in the comfort of his pillows.

* * *

><p>The Thompson sisters made their way up the seemingly never ending staircase that led up to the Death Weapon Meister Academy. They were finally getting close, much to their relief. They could see the white sculptures of skulls coming into view over the horizon, as well as the ever burning candles whose flames seemed so odd in the early morning light.<p>

"Do you think it was a good idea to leave Kid home by himself today?" Patty asked.

"He'll be fine. He can deal with it," Liz responded. "Hopefully he'll have gotten over it by tomorrow."

"Yeah," Patty agreed. "I've been thinking, what if he shaves his head? That'll fix all of his hair problems! He wouldn't have his stripy issues or have to spend an hour combing it in the morning or anything else. Maybe we should shave his head for him."

"I don't know if that would actually help, Patty," Liz's lip curled with distaste. "Of course," her face became devious. "We could always give him mohawk. That'd be fricken hilarious to see."

"Oh we totally should," Patty giggled. "I wonder if his stripes would be a part of it. He'd look like a zebra."

"Oh my god, but could you imagine someone as bratty and uptight as Kid with a mohawk?" Liz started laughing.

"It'd be better than that time I put his hair in piggy-tails while he was sleeping," the younger one snickered.

"Oh I don't know if it would be as funny as _that_," her sister said, remembering the incident with perfect clarity. "I mean, do you remember his face when he woke up?"

"He was so pissed off," Patty's said through her abruptly choking laughter.

"It never would have happened if he didn't have his hair practically in a bob," Liz sighed with false pity. Patty only laughed harder in response. With all of the pranks they pulled on the boy, you'd never guess how much they actually cared about him.

"Kiddo would make a nice zebra," she squealed after they'd laughed their way into the building. "If he doesn't get out of bed, can I shave his head and make him a zebra? I think he'd make an awesome zebra. Can I please?"

"I don't think that'll help. Then he _definitely _won't get out of bed," Liz said.

"Aww," Patty looked disappointed. "But he'd look funny as a zebra..."

"Yeah but I don't think it'd do a lot of good," Liz said, becoming serious as she definitely didn't want Patty to actually carry out this deed. "He'd be even more mopey than he is now."

"I guess you're right," her sister said disappointedly.

"Right," she said. "Don't go shaving his head without his permission, please."

"Okay..." she crossed her arms sadly. However, her mood was change almost immediately as she noticed the inside of the school. "This place is so big and pretty!"

The building was grand an extravagant. The halls were lined with arches that extended up into a high, curved ceiling. The floors had the same black and white tiles as the Gallows Mansion, as well as the same skull-shaped decor. The windows were huge and circular and looked out onto large courtyards lined with rose bushes and trees with shiny, black leaves. Everything, they noticed, was also arranged symmetrically. Liz was beginning to believe that Kid's problem with symmetry was also shared by his father to a certain extent.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Damn, this place is fancy."

As they marveled at the molding and all of the intricate details that existed in the walls and ceiling, a voice came from behind them.

"Hey, you guys," they said, their voice hoarse and loud. "You're the weapons of that guy whose ass I kicked yesterday, right?"

They both turned around to face them once they realized who it was. It was the two meisters and two weapons from yesterday. They recognized the two boys first; The one with the icy-white hair and bloody red eyes whose teeth had been sharpened into points. He reminded them both very much of a shark. He looked incredibly relaxed, almost bored, with his hands in the pockets of his sports jacket. He looked disinterested and most certainly hadn't been the one to speak to them.

The other one was definitely more the type with his wild black eyes and spiky turquoise hair. His build was by far the most athletic of the group, his exposed arms very defined and tanned. He looked very intense, not laid-back in any way. A proud, toothy smile was embossed onto his face.

"Um, you didn't really kick his ass, but yeah," Liz replied.

"What are talking about? He was passed out on the ground when I was done with 'em," he said, or perhaps yelled. "I'm the great BlackStar, by the way. I don't think I properly introduced myself to you yesterday. Course, it's not like you didn't recognize me when you saw me."

"Nope! We've never heard of you!" Patty squealed happily. "I'm Patty! And this is my big sister Liz!" she introduced.

"What? How the hell don't you know who I am?" he looked astonished.

"I don't know. It's just never come up," Liz waved him off, confused disgust in her voice and features. "And, actually, I think it was him who actually cut his hair and made him pass out. Not you," she pointed at the white haired one.

"But... I..." BlackStar looked taken aback before it turned to anger. The following words that came out of his mouth were a mess of bigoted ramblings and yelling. They didn't really pay attention. The girl behind them who seemed to be about Liz's age tried her best to calm him, pulling him to the side and talking to him hastily. Her hair was long and black, pulled into a tight pony-tail on top of her head. Her eyes were wide and kind, doe-like. Her skin was pale and clean. She was incredibly pure looking, in a sense. She seemed like she was incapable of ever wronging someone. There was just something about her that seemed perfectly trustworthy.

The other two, the white haired one and his meister, just sighed. This other girl was young with pale blonde hair, large forest green eyes, and a round face. She seemed almost too young to be as talented of a meister as she appeared with her soul perception. Yet, from what they'd seen the previous day, she seemed to be the most intelligent of the group.

"You're gonna have to ignore BlackStar. He's just like that some times. " she said. "I'm Maka and this is my partner Soul and that's Tsubaki. Sorry you had to meet us like that yesterday."

"Don't worry about it," Liz said. "We've met people in worse ways, believe me." Both the sister's thought back to the day they first met Kid, high and pointing a gun at his throat.

"So where is that kid, anyway?" Soul asked. His voice low and calm, very much sounding like it came from his chest.

"He's not coming today," Liz sighed.

"Seriously?" Soul looked disbelieving. "All we did was cut his hair."

Patty giggled quietly for a second at the thought before it escalated into full laughter.

"Yes. I know," Liz rubbed her temples. Patty wrapped her arms around her ribs as she howled until she was on the floor. Maka and Soul simply stood there confused, unsure how to comment. "Hopefully, he'll be back tomorrow."

"So he can be defeated just by cutting some of his hair? How the hell did you guys destroy Anubis, then?" BlackStar asked once his fit of rage had ended.

"He has issues with symmetry incase you didn't notice," Liz explained. "The pharoh was _really _asymmetrical."

"He was all PSHFLL!" Patty added with sound effects from her position on the floor. "He was super pissed. It was really funny."

"Alright, so if you destroyed Anubis, are you guys Death Sythes then?" Soul asked, hesitantly impressed.

"No," Liz deadpanned. "We got all of our souls confiscated. We weren't actually supposed to destroy the pyramid."

"Aw, that sucks," he replied, running a hand through his hair. "It's almost as bad as that stupid cat thing," he said more to Maka than the sisters.

"What cat thing?" Patty asked.

"Don't ask. I don't even want to think about it," she answered sourly. The bell sounded just afterwards, signaling that all students had to get to their classes.

"Damn. You guys have that crazy Stein guy too, right?" Soul stated more than asked. "We'll tell you about it in class."

* * *

><p>Several days passed afterwards where the Thompson sisters would wake up, knock on Kid's door, and be rejected. They'd then simply go to school by themselves where they would talk mainly to Soul, Maka, Tsubaki, and BlackStar. They had apparently been accepted into their circle quite quickly. However, they always asked about Kid and where he was, especially BlackStar. They'd always have to tell them he still wasn't coming, though they hadn't specifically mentioned that he was moping in bed simply for the sake of his reputation. Still, it was becoming quite annoying, especially by the time it had come to be a full week.<p>

"Kid, we're home!" Patty announced as soon as they opened the door. There was no response. The house also seemed strangely disorganized. To anyone walking in for the first time, it wouldn't seem that way, but for them it was obvious; Kid had not straightened the picture frames today.

"Kid?" Liz called as they began to descend the stairs. There, again, was no response. They shared a confused look and silently made the decision to check his bedroom.

After navigating the hallways, they came to the proper door. Liz knocked. When nothing happened, Patty pressed herself against the door and peered through the keyhole. She couldn't see much, but she knew he was in there.

"He's in his bed," she told her sister as she saw the lump in the sheets shift.

"Death the freaking Kid!" Liz said frustratedly as she knocked on the door again. Patty straightened up and tried turing the handle. She pushed on the door as hard as she could, but it wouldn't budge.

"Did he _really_ lock the door?" Liz sighed exasperatedly. "Open the door, Kid!"

"No! Go away!" was all they could get as a response. He sounded panicked.

"Come on, Kid," she pleaded.

"I said go away!" he yelled, this time louder.

"Would you just quit whining and open the damn door?" she said.

"Absolutely not!" he protested.

"Kid, you've been in your room now for a freaking week now! You're being so incredibly stupid I can't even, like, augh!" Liz tugged on a the back of her hair. "You are being beyond ridiculous."

"I don't care. Leave me alone," he replied.

"God damn, Kid! It's just hair! I'm a chick and I don't even care this much!" Liz groaned. "Get out here!"

"I said no!" They heard him say as something impacted the door with a loud _crack _from the other side, making both girls jump back a step.

"Really, Kid? Really?" she said, astonished at his behavior.

"I got an idea!" Patty said suddenly. Before Liz could even turn to look at her or respond, the handle of the door was blasted to pieces in a bright pink light. She jumped away as the knob crashed to the floor far too close to her foot and a burnt out hole was left in its place.

"Nice," Liz commented, as she went to push the door open. Patty giggled, turning her finger which had previously been gun barrel back to normal. However, Liz found that the door still wouldn't open. There was obvious pressure being applied on the other side.

"Dude, I've all ready seen your hair. I don't care what you look like," she grunted as she pushed against his efforts.

"No. Please just go away," he said from the other side.

"Come on, Kiddo, it's not that big a deal," Patty said as she pressed her shoulder up against the door.

"Then why did you have to break my door?" he hissed through gritted teeth.

"Because you're a stubborn prick," Liz answered.

"Would you just go away?" he said.

"No. You can't stay in your bedroom all day for something as stupid as this," she answered sternly.

"Yes I can," he insisted.

"No! You can't!" Patty yelled, as another blast of pink light erupted from her hand, this time much larger, and blew a burning, splintering hole through the door. Liz fell to the floor as the swung open once the opposing force was removed.

"Patty, you're treating this like a heist," Liz groaned as she started to push herself up. Her sister, however, wasn't listening. She'd burst into a fit of laughter and was sitting in the doorway in hysterics.

"I hate you both so freaking much," she heard Kid whine from a foot and a half away, slumped up against his dresser. "Especially, you, Patty."

She saw Kid laying on the floor, trying to pick himself up with burns in shirt and pants. However, once she saw his face thoroughly, she knew exactly what Patty was laughing at, no matter how quickly he curled up and shoved his face into his knees.

"Oh my freaking God, you look like a girl!" Liz said, covering her mouth in attempt to hide her laughter. She supposed she shouldn't have said anything at all, since their goal was to make him com out of his room, but it was just too easy to let it slip out.

"You've got Patty's haircut!" the younger girl howled.

"I do not! Shut up!" he yelled into his knees. "I told you not to come in!"

"No, no, it's not, it's not that bad," Liz tried to stifle her amusement and sound comforting. It wasn't working very well.

"Yes it is," he mumbled.

"Look just, let me see. I'm sure its not that awful," she said as she grabbed his wrists and to get him to unburry his face. She couldn't keep the smile off her face, though, when she did get him to look up at her.

He'd cut his hair by himself, clearly, with his only intention being making it symmetrical. He'd cut the other half of his bangs to match the side that had been cut. So basically, Patty was right. He did indeed have her haircut. Only, perhaps more severe as his bangs were so very straight and precise. Liz couldn't keep herself from snorting.

"Okay, um," she tried to reshape her face into something less amused. "Look, you..."

Kid looked at her with an absolutely miserable expression, but she still couldn't help herself.

"You..." She paused, wondering if she should say it. Eventually, she couldn't contain herself any longer and whispered, "You look like a little dutch boy."

Patty was laughing so hard she'd stopped making any noise. She was just doubled over on the floor with her eyes watering and her mouth open.

"I want to die," he groaned.

"No, no. You don't need to die. It's um," Liz said hastily. "It's, well... Maybe we can fix it."

"How?" he said, clearly not thinking such a feat was possible.

"Well..." she said as she screwed up her face in concentration. "Well, I could cut it all off."

"You mean we're gonna shave his head?" Patty yelled excitedly. Kid looked horrified.

"No. We're not shaving his head," Liz said in a way that made her point very clear. "Patty, can you go get the stuff I use to cut your hair with?"

"Kay!" Patty gasped as she stood and ran out of the room, still dying of amusement.

"No! If you cut my hair, it might not be symmetrical," Kid protested.

"It's better than looking like a girl," she replied. "Besides, I promise to do it carefully. I cut mine and Patty's hair and it looks fine, doesn't it?"

"Y-yeah, but..." He still looked nervous.

"Then what's the problem? It'll be fine," she reassured him.

Kid groaned and let himself fall into a more relaxed position against the dresser.

"It'll be fine," she said again. "Anything is better than whatever the hell this is." She grabbed a chunk of his bangs with her fingertips.

"At least its symmetrical," he sighed.

"You can't be serious," she rolled her eyes.

"I'm not." He ran a hand through the short, straight bangs, peering up at them with a very disgusted look on his face. There was nothing in his face that suggested this was true, but he also didn't appear to be lying. Maybe this was him being sarcastic. Liz couldn't tell.

Patty came back with a black velvety looking bag, dirty with spilled makeup and essentially covered in a residue of foundation and eyeshadow. She giggled at Kid who gave her a pleading look to please stop.

"Alright," Liz said, standing up. "We're doing this in the kitchen. Come on."

"Why can't we do it here?" he asked worriedly.

"Because I don't want you looking in the mirror while this happens. You'll just bitch about it the whole time."

* * *

><p>"These stripes of yours are the weirdest thing ever," Liz said, temporarily stopping her clipping and examining his hair thoroughly.<p>

"I already know they're hideous, okay?" he said as she tilted his head to the side to get a closer look at them.

"No, that's not it, it's just..." She paused, wondering how to explain it. "They're only on the top layer of your hair, but when I cut them off they, like... moved."

"Yeah. I know. I've been told," he said. "I don't know why they do that. They actually show up on my scalp if you shave my head, too. You have no idea how irritating it is."

"Wait, so you _have _tried shaving your head?" she asked, a light laugh in her voice.

"I was eleven. I don't want to talk about it," he said as she began cutting his hair again. She brought the scissors to the back of his hair, which was still long. She closed the blades of the scissors on a small chunk and cut off two of the three stripes. When the hair fell to the floor, though, the white faded to black and the stripes bled back into what was on his head.

"Don't tell Patty that. She wants to give you a mohawk," she warned him. Kid winced.

"Good God. Don't ever let her," he demanded.

"Don't worry. I wont. You'd look ridiculous," she assured him.

"Good," he sighed. He watched his hair fall to the floor with slight terror. He knew Liz could cut her own hair as well as Patty's hair just fine, but that was different. Those were simple, layerless, feminine haircuts. Barbering was something different entirely.

"By the way, I hope you don't mind that I bought this pack of scissors," she said. "I used to use regular paper scissors, which really isn't very good for cutting hair."

"It's fine, but you could just go to the hairdresser now, you know," he said.

"I know, but I like doing it," she explained, beginning to cut the other side of his hair. "Although, I've never actually been to a hairdresser before."

"Really?" Kid asked. It seemed strange to him as he'd never really realized that some people cut their own hair before the two girls had moved in.

"Um, yeah. Do you know how much haircuts cost in New York? Like hell we could've afforded that," she told him.

"Right..." he agreed. "If you don't mind, could you please just focus on my hair instead of talking? You're making me nervous. No offense or anything."

"I'm not going to mess up. I know what I'm doing," she reassured him confidently.

"I really hope you do," he winced.

"More than you did," she snapped. He grunted in response. She smirked, knowing he knew she was right. She clipped a few last pieces before setting the scissors down.

"Okay..." Liz sighed, pulling an electric razor from her bag. She plugged it into the socket above the countertop.

"I thought you said you weren't going to shave my head," Kid said, suddenly becoming panicked again.

"I just need to do something on the back. Calm your balls," she said casually.

He shut his eyes tightly as she turned it on and it began to buzz quite threateningly. He made sure to keep himself as stiff as possible, worried any slight movement would create a bald spot. He felt it vibrate near his neck, just brushing over his skin and taking off just the tiniest bit of hair. She went over the edges carefully, trimming the nape of his neck into a more perfect V than it grew naturally. She was little bit jealous of his hairline. Her own just grew straight across. Of course, Patty's was the worst being it was a very rough W shape.

He couldn't help but jerk his head away when she started shaving around his ears.

"Hold still," she said, catching his head in her hand and keeping him from moving any further over. She moved so that she was facing his front. She was determined to prove to him that she could make him symmetrical.

She tilted his chin up and made sure he was looking at her straight. She brought all of her focus into whats she was doing and began trimming around the front of his ears as carefully as she possibly could.

After several moments of intense silence, she examined his hair thoroughly and concluded it was the best she could do. She felt fairly proud of herself as well. It was probably the neatest job she'd ever done. She smiled and turned off the razor. Kid calmed immediately.

"Well, I think it came out pretty good. It's really freaking short, though," she said, running a hand over his hair. It felt like the bristles of a toothbrush. "You wont have to part it or comb it, at least."

Kid ran a hand through it as well, uncertainty obvious on his face as he felt just how much hair was gone. He didn't really mind too much, but he had always had his hair in pretty much the same cut. It was odd to him.

"Can I see what it looks like now?" he asked as he stood, still running his hands through what little was there. It felt fairly neat, at least.

"Sure. But you're not aloud to fix it. You're not aloud to cut you're own hair ever again," she told him, seriousness obvious in her eyes.

Kid didn't respond as he was already almost out of the room when she said it. He walked into the small half-bath off the hall. Liz, wanting very much to see his reaction, hurried after him.

"Oh my freaking god," he said, staring at it with a rather neutral expression. She wasn't sure, exactly, what he thought of it yet. He seemed slightly shocked. Of course, it didn't really matter if he liked it or not. If he didn't the only other option was to shave his head completely bald.

It was very short and spiky. It wasn't like he'd just been given a military haircut, but there still wasn't a lot left. It stuck up a little bit in the front, likely because his hair was just so stiff. The white stripes still encompassed half of his head, though he didn't have bangs anymore so it wasn't much in the front.

"At least you can't see the stripes was much anymore," he commented. "But I'd still really rather have it long."

"It doesn't look that bad, actually," Liz said honestly. Kid wouldn't stop touching it. After a few more moments of him contemplating.

"I'm not going back until it grows out," he said, his voice verging on being upset.

"Oh, come on," she sighed as she leaned against the door frame. "It's really isn't bad. It actually kind of looks good. You look more mature."

"Yeah, but..." he paused. "It's uneven."

"What? Where is it uneven? Show me," Liz insisted.

"My sideburns, for one. And this side, I think, is a little longer than this side," he pointed out. "And since you don't want me to touch it and I really don't want you to touch my hair again, I can't go to school."

"It's not even noticeable!" she practically shrieked.

"It's definitely noticeable," he replied.

"Oh, you're hopeless. Fine, stay home for a month. See if I care." Liz left the bathroom and stalked off to her room. She had homework to do, because she went to school like a normal person.

* * *

><p><em>AN: So uh... I just wrote close to 5000 words almost entirely about Kid's hair... yep... I'm not a fangirl at all..._

_reviews?_


	7. Ill

_A/N: PLEASE READ I wasn't going to post this immediately after chapter 6, because I figured that posting two chapters in a row about Kid laying in bed dying would be a bad idea, but I don't think I'm going to be finishing anything else soon because of school. It also seems to go out of order being this is supposed to be after they've been going to Shibusen/DWMA for a while but... oh well... I don't really care about order anymore since this "story" is basically the FF equivalent of a sketch dump._

_This is something I've been thinking about for a while. Biology is my favorite practical subject and superstition/mythology is my favorite pointless subject, so I've been thinking about what Kid's immune system would be like and what it's be like if he ever got sick. _

_And I pretty much decided it would be a really bad time. _

_I don't own SoulEater_

* * *

><p>"Ew, dude, you're like foaming at the mouth," BlackStar said, sounding disgusted. However, he couldn't have been too disgusted as he was uncomfortably close to Kid's face trying to get a better look.<p>

"Yeah, man. You look rabid or something," Soul agreed, also hovering over the shiningami, though still trying not to completely invade his personal space.

"Kid has rabies!" Patty giggled.

Kid merely groaned in response, sitting on Maka's couch doubled over with his arms around his abdomen. Wisps of black fire-like energy leaked out of the corners of his mouth, little skulls dancing in the flames until they disappeared into evanesce. A small amount of a thick, lavender, fizzy substance escaped with it, the bubbles popping and leaving behind a dark purple residue that dripped down his chin. His skin had paled even further from its normal porcelain color, which no one here had even thought possible, and had a sickly tinge to it. Though, his cheeks were flushed slightly pink, likely from the sudden fever that was still climbing higher.

"Please don't be so rude, BlackStar," Tsubaki told him gently as she sat down on the couch and handed Kid a new paper towel from the kitchen which he used to wipe some of the purple substance from his mouth. It was a futile effort, though, since it wasn't going to stop.

"What? It's gross," BlackStar said.

"Is'just ectoplasm," Kid defended, though his words were slurred and his voice cracked.

"Still gross," he said, crossing his arms and pulling himself upright again.

Liz laid a hand on the back of her meister's neck, his skin smooth and firm under her fingers. It felt even hotter than the last time she'd checked. "Jeez, lean back and let me see your forehead," she ordered him, putting a hand on his chest and gently pushing him backward so that he was laying back into the couch. Kid whined in protest, muttering something about how moving might make him vomit, but still had no choice. She placed the back of her hand on his forehead as streams of his soul energy swirled up around her face.

"Maka, d'you have a thermometer? His temperature feels ridiculous," the blonde said worriedly.

"Uh huh," Maka said, rushing to the bathroom and coming back with an electric thermometer in hand. "I haven't used it in a while, though, so I don't know if it works,"

"It doesn't feel like he has a fever," Tsubaki said, her hand on his forehead. "He kind of feels cold,"

"Yeah, but he feels warmer than he normally does," Liz said as she turned on the thermometer. "Ever heard the expression 'as cold as death'?"

The thermometer beeped, signaling that it was ready. "Open your mouth and stick this under your tongue," Liz directed. Kid complied after a moment of hesitation. He opened his mouth, a large amount of ectoplasm that he'd been apparently holding back flowed down his chin and more dark energy escaped into the room, dissipating into the air with a cracking noise.

"Okay, now tell me that isn't disgusting," BlackStar said.

Liz winced a bit as she placed the thermometer in his mouth.

"Yeah, that's pretty nasty," Soul agreed as he watched it drip from his mouth onto his shirt. Kid groaned and leaned forward again, touching his head to his knees.

"Aww, don't get it on the floor, man. I'm gonna have to clean that," the white haired boy complained as the ectoplasm dripped from his mouth onto the carpet. It made odd fizzing noises when it touched the rug's fibers, smoking with Kid's soul energy. Soul was almost immediately hit with a hardcover book upon speaking.

"Augh! Jeez, Maka, the hell was that for?" He growled, rubbing the back of his head. Maka didn't answer him. She didn't feel she had to.

"It tastes like vomit," Kid whined, though his voice was quite muffled by his knees and the ectoplasm.

"Maybe we should call Lord Death," Maka Suggested. "He'll probably know what to do about this."

"Yeah, we probably should," Liz agreed, pulling the thermometer out of Kid's mouth. "Hey, Kid, your normal body temperature's 75 degrees isn't it?"

Kid nodded. "Seriously?" BlackStar asked, astonished.

"Yeah. We should definitely call Lord Death," Liz said, looking nervous. "Unless this thing's wrong, your temperature is 82 degrees. Which is like one of us having a temperature of 105."

Kid made a miserable noise upon hearing that, his head now in between his knees. Today had started off so well. He'd felt fine for the most part. Though, now that he thought about it, he had been a bit more tired than normal.

They'd all gone to Maka's apartment to hang out. They were all having a good time, enjoying each other's company. It had been a good way to spend the afternoon. But then, when evening came around and it was time for dinner, he'd started feeling sick to his stomach. He'd eaten a little bit of the food Maka had made to be polite, but that hadn't been such a good idea. His soul energy had started coming out of his mouth, something it had never done before, and very soon afterwards he'd thrown his meal back up. It had gotten progressively worse until it was where it was now.

Now, the food Maka had made lay on the coffee table, forgotten.

The ectoplasm had been the part that bothered Kid the most. He'd never had anything like that happen to him before under these circumstances. The only other time it had happened was before he'd even met Liz and Patty. He'd been on a mission for his father and had had to carry more souls back than he could handle. The overload of soul energy had caused ectoplasm to leak from his mouth. Of course, it hadn't been to this extent. Ectoplasm was a byproduct of souls. He knew that and it wasn't something that normally bothered him. This, however...

"I'll go call him," Maka said and headed off to the bathroom.

"I'm gong to die," Kid said sorely. "I'm going to throw up, and then I'm going to die,"

"No, dude, no you are not!" BlackStar said, suddenly grabbing Kid by his shoulders and sitting him up so that he was facing him. "I am way too awesome for you to die! I'm BlackStar! My awesomeness can cure any disease!"

"BlackStar, that doesn't-" Liz started.

"You can't die, man! You just can't!" He shook him somewhat roughly. "I won't let you!"

Upon being shaken, the looming feeling of nausea he'd had hit him full force. His face went blank for a moment before he grabbed BlackStar's wrists, forcing him to let go, and then bolted for the bathroom. He tore open the door and emptied anything that happened to be left in his stomach into the toilet. Maka had been talking to Lord Death in the mirror just as he did so.

"Um, yeah, like I said, he seems really sick and we have no idea what to do..." the girl said, watching him worriedly.

"Mmmhmm, I see. Could you send Liz and Patty to come in here, Maka? I'd like to talk to them about this especially and since Kid has already joined us..." The masked man in the mirror said.

"Yes sir," Maka said as she bowed. She stole a last glance at Kid before she walked out of the bathroom.

Kid dragged himself up to the sink. His father's mask looked worried. Kid glanced at him with bloodshot eyes for a moment, his hair dangling in his face, but was having trouble thinking of what he should say to him at a time like this. He thought he might have asked him something, maybe if he was okay, but he wasn't sure. There had been a noise that sounded like his voice, though.

He filled one of the small paper cups from the stack Maka and Soul kept on the sink and rinsed his mouth out. Liz and Patty came through the door soon after.

"Hello, girls," Lord Death said upon their arrival.

"Hi, Lord Death," they said together.

"He's really sick, idn't he?" Patty said, watching as her meister leaned forward further and further toward the bottom of the sink. Liz caught him before his head hit porcelain and propped him up enough so that he was sort of standing. The two girls held him steady by the crooks of his arms.

"Not too much to worry about," Lord Death said. "This is just what happens to shiningami when they get the flu."

"I didn't even know Kid could get the flu," Liz said as she pulled a tissue from a box on the counter and wiped some of the ectoplasm off his mouth. It was beginning to build up too much and Kid looked uncomfortable.

"Well, a shiningami's immune system _is _his soul, so if Kid is too stressed out or doesn't sleep enough, then, well, he'll end up getting sick," he explained. It was actually a bit more complex than that, but now was not the time for such a long explanation. "But its nothing resting and some medicine wont fix."

"So he'll be alright?" Liz asked.

"It'll take a couple of days, but yes. He'll be fine," he assured them. "But I still want you to take him home immediately. This is going to be a rough couple of days, I'm afraid."

Kid coughed sickly, spattering purple ectoplasm all over the sink and mirror. "Sorry..." He said, dark energy still streaming from his mouth and now starting to come out his nose.

"That... That'll stop soon," His father looked at him sympathetically.

Kid only groaned again and let his head droop further.

* * *

><p>"Kid, your dad said you have to take this!" Liz said, mildly irritated. She held a spoon full of red liquid up to his mouth.<p>

"No, it's gross," he whined. Liz knew Kid had his immature moments, but he was acting like child. He was laying in his bed, probably the largest one in the house, in a t-shirt and boxers with all of the covers and pillows surrounding him like a nest. A cold cloth had been draped over his forehead after his temperature had risen yet another degree. She supposed he was becoming a bit delirious from his fever so she couldn't be too angry with him, but he was still becoming aggravating.

"Stop moving!" he insisted.

"I haven't moved at all, Kid," she stated. "Now take this. It'll make your fever go down."

"No-" as he opened his mouth to protest, she fed him the medicine. There was something extremely odd about treating the would-be grim reaper like a baby. Of course, were he not acting like one, such a method would not be necessary

Kid swallowed the medicine, but choked and gagged and spit dramatically. "It's disgusting," he said quietly.

"Don't be such a brat," Liz said, annoyed she'd actually had to stick the spoon in his mouth herself.

"I told you to stop moving like that," he said again.

"I'm not moving, Kid. Your just all fever crazy," she told him as she placed the bottle of medicine on his bedside table. "Speaking of which, you're really lucky you're a shiningami or else that bad of a fever would be a lot more dangerous."

"I'm still going to die," he said, closing his eyes and wiping a tiny bit of ectoplasm from the corner of his mouth. The amount produced had thinned out quite a bit, which would have been better had it not begun coming out of his nose and tear ducts as well.

"No you're not," Liz sighed.

"My head hurts and I practically can't hear out of one of my ears. _Only_ one of my ears," he said irritably. "And my nose is the same only on the opposite side."

"I know, alright, but there's nothing we can do about that," she said cooly. "The only thing we can do is wait until you're better."

"Then your face'll stop leaking!" Patty reassured him happily from the other side of the bed. She'd for some reason felt it was necessary to be wearing a nurse costume at the moment. It wasn't exactly a sexy nurse costume, much to Kid's relief, but it was still somewhat ridiculous. It at least came down to a little below her knees, which was more than could be said for a lot of her outfits. Kid still didn't see the point to the puffy white dress with red crosses on the sleeves. He didn't understand why Patty felt the need to play dress up at sixteen. He also didn't understand why Liz, at eighteen, had joined her.

At the present, though, this was not on Kid's mind. He seemed to be staring off into space, but the truth was he'd just never noticed before how fascinating the ceiling was. He blinked lazily, keeping his eyes closed for several seconds before opening them again.

"You should sleep for now," Liz said, sliding off the bed. "But that medicine wont last very long since you're... well, you. Your dad said it'll wear off after only two hours."

Kid sighed and closed his eyes. He was asleep before the two were out of his room.

* * *

><p>It was all just black, or perhaps it was gray or purple or green. He wasn't quite sure. He couldn't seem to look directly at the emptiness before him in a way that would allow him to determine the color. It blurred and warped and shook so fast it made him dizzy. And then of course, there were the seemingly random things that would periodically take hold of his view.<p>

A crow suddenly became such a thing, standing in the unidentifiable emptiness. It's feathers would be shiny and beautiful for a second, but then they'd change and become sickly and ragged the next. He thought it might be changing colors too, but he wasn't sure. It kept flashing back and forth endlessly. He watched it, horrified as it shifted back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. It went faster and faster and got closer and further.

He reached out to touch it with invisible hands and gripped it's wings tightly. He could feel it's bones under his fingers and they felt all too thin and far too thick simultaneously. He couldn't settle on a feeling. He wasn't sure. He couldn't tell. It was wrong. Everything felt wrong.

The crow suddenly changed into lumps of clay in his fists, strangely soft and hard at the same time. He clutched it harder, unable to seem to get his fists to tighten enough. His hands felt gigantic and far away. He felt himself now in the crows place, changing between perfectly fine and horrifically grotesque.

He breath quickened and his tongue felt like it didn't belong in his mouth. He thought he might've been floating on his stomach at this point, but he couldn't really tell. He just wasn't sure. He felt his head start to become heavy and sink downward. Maybe he was upside down now, or maybe he was still standing. That was, if he ever had been.

His hands were so distant and swollen.

His head was facing where he thought was down. What color was this emptiness? The bird was there again, still shifting back and forth. It was pink now, or maybe blue. Oh god, his hands felt weird. He wished they were gone. It felt too wrong. He wished the crow would go away. It's feathers were falling out. It looked dead. It kept becoming disgustingly filthy and then far too clean.

He couldn't close his eyes. He thought he might be on his back now. He stared up at that crow, wishing it would stop. It kept going, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And then suddenly, directly in front of him, something smiling horribly with enormous teeth appeared faster than he could comprehend and spoke faster than he could hear. He didn't know what it said, but it laughed at the end. Then it spoke again, this time even faster. It grabbed at him, at his face, at his arms and legs with so many hands.

It's fingers were sticky and dirty and smelled like dust and chalk. They crawled over his face, cold and rough, tapping against his skin. They gripped his arms tightly, enough to make them burn. His hands were stretching further away. He was floating on his head again, facing downward, waiting for a fall that wouldn't come. The fingers kept touching him, awful and dirty.

It spoke once more, from somewhere he couldn't place. This time, too slow. Or perhaps it was too fast this time as well.

"You're off by 4%"

He felt sick.

Kid's eyes opened wide to find himself drenched in sweat and practically hyperventilating. He took in several deep breathes, trying to calm himself. His heart was racing, but his body felt distant. Everything was dark still, but he was no longer floating. He was on something soft. He also felt very hot.

His breathing wouldn't calm not matter what he did and there was an overwhelming sense of sickness in his stomach. He tore himself from his bed before he even realized he was laying in it and flung open his door. He crossed the hall without even realizing he was doing it. He opened the door of the bathroom and flicked on the light switch from habit. The light was blinding and white. He threw up for the third time that day.

Kid felt someone grab his hair and gently pull it out of his face. He was sick one last time before standing up shakily. He managed to get himself to the sink and hold himself up on the countertop. He kept his eyes closed, the light still too painful.

"You alright?" Liz said as she leaned against the counter next to him.

"Mmm..." was the closest thing he gave to an answer. He opened his eyes just enough to find a tooth brush. "Wha'time's it?" he asked tiredly.

"Around 8:30," she answered softly. "Me and Patty got a movie and I was coming up to see if you were awake and wanted to watch."

"Maybe," he said, starting to brush his teeth. He couldn't live another second with his mouth tasting like that now that he was mostly conscious. His dream was still fresh in his mind, making him unable to focus on much else. He didn't know why it had made him feel the way he did as it wasn't something one would first think of as frightening, but it did. There was something unsettling about it he couldn't place. There wasn't anything particularly what most would consider frightening, but it just felt wrong somehow. He spit out his toothpaste.

"What kinda movie?" his voice was groggy and forced sounding.

"Some action movie. Patty picked it," Liz told him. "I just made sure it wasn't Inception or Batman since you're sick and those make _me_ nauseous normally,"

"Nauseated," Kid corrected, his eyes still mostly closed. "And how does Batman make you nauseated?"

"Tch. Still being a grammar nazi even when you're sick..." Liz rolled her eyes. "And in Batman there's those scenes where they're just talking and the camera's all moving in a circle around them super fast. It's horrible. I can't watch it."

Kid nodded and took a deep breath. His eyes were finally adjusted enough to the light for him to keep them open. His reflection looked awful. His hair was frizzy and in knots in the back, but wet and sticking to his forehead in the front. Then there was that one piece on the right side that _always _stuck out no matter what he did that was sticking out more than normal. His skin was washed out and covered in a thin layer of sweat. There was a small bit of ectoplasm dripping from his eyes and some had dried around his eyelids so that they stuck together when he blinked. The strangest thing he noticed, though, was the bluish patch on his neck that seemed to be glowing. Liz noticed too when he clapped his hand over it.

"The hell is that?" Liz moved so that she was looking directly at him.

"Nothing," he said quickly. "Um, I'll be down in a minute. I just wanna change my shirt."

"No. Wait. Let me see," she said, gently grabbing his wrist.

"No, Liz, really..." he pleaded. He tried to back away but she grabbed his shoulder as well.

"Come on, lemme see," she insisted. She forced her fingers under his palm and managed to lift his hand away. He was too shaky at the moment to really put up a fight.

"Ah, its nothing, okay? That just happens to me some times. Especially when I'm tired," he defended while he was captive.

"That's so weird," Liz sounded, actually, fairly intrigued. It was like there was a blue light under his skin.

"Mmhmm, can I go now?" Kid started to sound annoyed.

"Yeah, sorry," Liz let go and stepped back, realizing he felt like she'd violated his space. He stepped back too, replacing his hand over the spot on his neck. She didn't know why he seemed so embarrassed. It was weird, yes, but it didn't seem like anything shameful. Yet, he was acting like she'd just seen him naked.

"I'll just, be down in a minute, then," he said oddly and then turned and left the bathroom. She watched him walk across the hall. He seemed very disoriented and unsteady. He eventually took his hand off his neck to help himself balance, the icy blue light very visible in the dark of the hallway.

She left to wait for him in the TV room with Patty, but when he didn't come down they went upstairs to check on him. They opened his bedroom door to find him sitting on his bed with his eyes closed, a hand on one of the tall posts to keep himself steady. He had managed to change his shirt, but didn't seem to be able to get much further. They thought he might've fallen asleep like that.

All of the light was golden and warm, coming from the lamp on his dresser which was directly in front of his bed. The wall it was pushed up against was covered in mirrors to keep the room symmetrical at all times. It was easier and more practical than trying to jam two of everything into one room.

Patty shook him slightly by the shoulder, making his eyes flutter open.

"Are you gonna come down?" Liz asked. "'Cause you don't have to if you're too tired."

"No. It's fine," he said, pushing himself into a standing position. "I want to, really."

He was a little less shaky now, but was still exhausted looking. He pulled one of the blankets off the bed and wrapped it up in his arms. They walked back downstairs together in silence. Kid walked up against the banister when the time came to actually go down the stairs.

Once they'd made it to the TV room, Kid immediately sat down in the chair-and-a-half and wrapped himself in the blanket. He felt cold and hot at the same time. He could hear Liz and Patty talking, Patty was laughing a bit, but he didn't pay attention to what was being said. He closed his eyes as he had no intention of watching this movie. The only reason he'd agreed was so that he didn't have to spend anymore time in his room by himself.

Kid had never been sick before. He'd never felt like this at any time in his life and he hated it. He curled his legs into his chest and lay his head into one of the pillows on the chair. Patty probably commented on it, but he wasn't focused enough to tell exactly what she said. He didn't care what it was. So long as they were in the room with him he was fine.

He was still partly sure he was going to die, no matter how many times Liz told him that that was ridiculous and that he just had the flu, and didn't really want to be alone. He fell asleep very quickly again, still being swarmed with nonsensical vertigo-endusing dreams. He would open his eyes periodically to find that, even though it only felt like he'd merely blinked, an entire half hour had passed.

Yes, he was positive he was going to die.

* * *

><p>Sun streamed in through the window and spilled onto the hard wood at the front of his bed. Kid scratched his head and ran a hand through his hair, looking at the game with tired eyes. He felt dizzy and his hands were shaking as he moved his knight across the black and white board. Liz reached, then, for her rook and he realized something.<p>

"Wait, wait," he said as he rubbed one of his eyes, and then the other to make it symmetrical. "Can I take that back? I didn't mean to do that."

"Nope." She knocked his knight over and then added it to her pile of black pieces. "Check."

"It's pretty much check mate..." he said.

"No. You can move your king to the left," she told him.

"And then what? Move it back?" he said, clearly giving up.

"Exactly," she snickered.

Kid sighed and leaned back into his pillows while still keeping his legs crossed. "Set it up again," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes again. "That didn't count."

"Oh, it definitely counted," she said. "I'm not forgetting this. Ever."

He groaned in defeat and took a drink from the glass of water off of his bedside table.

"You've got to be sick if you actually lost to me at chess when this is my first time playing," Liz said, swiping the remaining pieces off the board and onto the quilt that was crumpled around Kid's knees.

"Just as long as I don't ever lose to BlackStar..." he commented, placing the glass back onto its designated coaster. Liz smirked and tucked a thin strand of hair behind her ear that had fallen out of her ponytail. She leaned forward with her arms on her thighs.

"I'd start to get scared if that happened," she said as she placed the white porcelain pieces on the side of the board closest to her. Kid sat up again and began setting up their obsidian twins on his side.

"Your move is first," he said once his pieces were as neat as they could be with the board balanced on the curve in the mattress between their weight.

"Right," she said. She started with one of her pawns.

As the game went the two seemed to be evenly matched, especially with Kid constantly begging her to let him take moves back. Eventually she gave in and told him he could, even though it was against the rules, but that it wouldn't count if he won by doing that. He seemed too tired to really care, or to be able to properly make a move without wanting to take it back immediately. Though, he did seem to finally start to focus after another game and a half. After that, he started playing a little more like himself.

"You can't move there," he said tiredly.

"Why?" Liz asked with irritation in her voice.

"You can't put yourself into check," he stated

"How am I- Oh..." She put the piece back down onto the board and began trying to figure out a different move. "Sorry."

"It's alright," Kid said, rubbing the back of his head. "I think I may have done it twice myself, actually."

"What? When?" She looked up at him with confusion.

"You didn't notice," he said.

"Well, obviously," she said, her eyes wide. Kid laughed awkwardly. It was a pitchy and hoarse noise that came with an uncomfortable twitch of the corners of his mouth. Kid rarely laughed and it always amused her when he did. Liz snorted.

"This is the lamest game of chess ever," she said, smiling widely.

"Pretty much, yeah," he said as he wiped ectoplasm from his mouth. "I can probably teach you how to play a little better when I'm not so nauseas."

"You mean nauseated?" she smirked wisely. Kid blinked slowly, looking at her for a moment with hazy eyes.

"Perhaps we should just play cards."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Yep. Kid is definitely one of those people that thinks they're going to die every time they get sick. _

_Anyway, that was fun to write. I tried really hard not to make it disgusting, but I have a hard time with that. (I get yelled at at the dinner table constantly) But sick is gross so there's really no way around it xD_

_The part where Kid's neck is glowing is in reference to the scene in the manga where Lord Death gives him brew and his ass glows for a second. He says it happens to him a lot because he's a shiningami. As far as I'm concerned, this could either be because of the reason Kid gave, or because his father is constantly teleporting shit into his pockets without him knowing. Either reason is fine with me. lol_

_ALSO! LIKE I SAID AT THE BEGINNING! THIS WILL BE GOING OUT OF ORDER FROM NOW ON BECAUSE I REALLY JUST DONT GIVE A DAMN! This wasn't supposed to tell a real story when you put it all together in the first place anyway. _


	8. Target Practice

_A/N: Sorry for not updating for so long. School and stuff got in the way. Hope this makes up for it. i've also got another fic which should be done soon about a mission._

_I don't own SoulEater_

* * *

><p>Magenta light flourished from barrels of the two pistols, though diluted as it was by the brightness of the setting sun. Shots rang through the street in successions of eight with only a short pause in between each. Each set was so quick, though, sometimes multiple shots sounded like one. Blast after blast came from the two guns, each one hitting its target precisely with a sharp <em>tick. <em>

"Got it," Kid announced casually. He then lifted another empty coffee can with two of the fingers also holding one of his guns. He swung his arm back swiftly, and then threw the can forward while being careful not to let go of Patty as well. The can sailed out in front of him and away from the guillotine he was perched on.

As it ascended into the air, he quickly drew the two pistols up and pulled their triggers rapidly. He pulled each one four times, switching back and forth between them easily. The aluminum can then fell into the street in front of the mansion with a metallic crunch and exactly sixteen freshly burned holes, eight parallel on each side.

"Got it," he said again as he plucked another can from the line extending down the guillotine's purple painted top on either side of him. He stood perfectly in line with the white skull emblem which sat in the exact center of the wooden piece holding the enormous blade. Each line had originally started out in line with the X's on either side of the skull, but were now much further down. Were the guillotine not so unnecessarily large, he would have run out by now.

Kid held the can in the same hand as he held Liz, swung his arm back, and then released only the can into the air. It soared over the tree just next to them as eight more shots were fired.

"I hate it when you do that," Liz complained as the can fell into the cobblestone street, also now adorned with sixteen new holes. "It freaks me out."

"Would you rather I use my foot?" he asked rhetorically.

"Yes, actually," she responded.

"Would that even work?" Patty asked.

"Um..." Kid hesitated for a moment before slipping the tip of his sneaker into one of the coffee cans on his other side. He stood on one foot with the can hanging off the other. He slowly brought his leg back behind him and then swung it forward in the same manner as kicking a soccer ball.

The can slipped off his foot and into the air, though not quite as high. Pink energy shot from the pistols again, driving themselves through the thin metal with ease. All eight hit before the can hit the ground. It did not, however, make it over the black iron fence this time and instead landed in the grass at its base.

"That sucked," Patty giggled.

"A bit," Kid agreed. Despite this, though, he stuck his other foot into the first can on Liz's side. He balanced carefully with it in front of him for a few seconds, and then flung it forward again. This time it went a little bit higher, but still was not quite perfect. It hit the fence as he was still shooting it. It might not of hit the ground first, but it was still a failure in his eyes.

"That one _really_ sucked," Patty said playfully, only reinforcing his remorse.

"In fact," Kid sighed. He could hear Liz groan angrily. "Maybe if I..." he trailed off as he picked up a can in the same hand as Patty. He then pulled his foot back and brought it forward again just as he dropped the can directly in front of himself. It impacted his foot with a metallic _clank _and then flew well over the fence, though he somehow still managed to get both of the pistols up in time to shoot it. It landed easily in between two of the houses across the street, just narrowly missing the siding.

"Alright, well, I'm pretty sure I might end up taking out someone's window with that, and being Miss Finch already hates us for the last time that happened, I'd have to say 'No, I'm not using my foot'," He concluded.

"But Miss Finch is gonna hate us no matter what," Patty said. "She's kind of a bitch."

"Yeah. I don't think it'll really matter," Liz added hopefully.

"I'd rather not add to it, honestly," Kid said. "Besides that, my dad would definitely kill me if I did that again."

"She told your dad me and Patty did it last time, though," Liz added, an angry edge in her voice. "Seriously, I think she just hates us."

"Yeah. I know. Sorry about all that," Kid said as he picked up a a new can, clutching it with Liz. "I'm still the one that got in trouble for it though."

The can sailed over the fence and into the road, all eight shots hitting it perfectly before it crashed to the ground. "Got it," he said.

"That's only cause you flipped out about it," Liz said. "I swear to God, you're the worst at keeping secrets on the planet."

"It was my fault, so it was my responsibility to tell him," he told her. "Besides that, it wasn't like he didn't see it."

"You still freaked out, though," she said. "Seriously, I didn't think you could be more of a spaz, but you proved me wrong."

"I broke someone's window!" he defended as he shot down another can.

"Yeah. And cried for a week about it." Liz shrieked, a laugh in her voice.

"I ruined someone else's property," he said sternly.

"I know but you kind of overreacted," she said dully.

"And that is why we are using coffee cans now instead of those metal disks," Kid said simply, tossing a can high above the fence and blasting it all eight times.

"I still don't get why she hates _us _specifically," Liz muttered as Kid picked up another can.

"I don't know that she really hates you," Kid tried to defend while shooting the can down. "I mean, she used to be nice. I used to eat dinner at her house a lot when I was little since my Dad can't really cook. It's just that her husband died and she kind of..."

"Went crazy?" Liz finished for him when he trailed off.

"Kind of yeah," he said as he tossed a can into the air.

"I don't think she hates us too much," Patty said. "She called me a strumpet once. That's good, right?"

There was an awkward pause after the can landed in the street, baring no holes, the sharp _clang _it made echoing through the neighborhood and off the fences and houses. The sound seemed to vibrate through the air, amplified by the black iron fence before them and the metal blade beneath Kid's feet.

"That's another word for 'whore', Patty," Kid explained, finally, a sigh in his voice.

"O-oh..." Patty said quietly, feeling embarrassed. No one said anything at all as the next eight shots drove themselves through the next can.

"Last one," Kid said as he grabbed the final can from the left end of the guillotine. He pulled it and Patty back and then released it when it came forward, his smallest fingers working quickly to burn all eight holes through the tin. It joined all the others in the middle of the rode with a hollow _clank_, rolling a bit before finally settling.

"And got it," he said conclusively. He twirled the two pistols a few times around his fingers, sighing slightly and suppressing a pleased smirk from finding its way onto his face.

"Awesome!" Patty squealed.

"Alright, so next is ping-pong balls, right?" Liz said.

"Yep," Kid replied. He pulled each of the two remaining coffee cans at the furthest ends of the guillotine closer to him so that they were on either sides of his feet. These two cans, though, were each filled with twenty little white ping-pong balls.

He plucked one from its container, holding it it between his middle finger and forefinger against Liz's grip. He swung his arm back and then forward, pulling those two fingers apart just a tiny fraction when he did so to let it fly high into the air. He watched the much smaller target carefully as he lifted the two pistols and pulled each of their triggers twice. Though, to Liz and Patty, it sounded like he'd only pulled them once. The shots were too close together to distinguish.

The ball fell onto the sidewalk, but no longer rolled as it was now far too concave. All four shots made it through, pretty much destroying the tiny thing. It was hard to tell it was ever spherical.

"Got it," he announced.

"Yeah! You busted the shit outa' that ball!" Patty said, laughing hysterically. Liz snorted and Kid said absolutely nothing. He only made a face that was caught somewhere between highly irritated and slightly amused, his teeth biting into his lip to keep himself from smiling.

Another ball was tossed into the air and shot down with four quick shots, falling to the ground with a soft _pik_.

"Got it," Kid said again, his voice becoming singsongy.

"Its not like anyone's doubting you, Hon'," Liz said, laughing lightly.

"I'm just saying," he defended as he threw another ball into the air and shot it down with ease.

"Got that one too," he said.

"Hey, it's not official anyway until we've picked them up and counted," Liz added.

"I can see them from here," Kid said. Another ball fell into the street after another succession of four shots.

"Well _we _can't. So its not official yet," Patty said.

"So you _are _doubting me then," he said, a crooked smile on his face.

"Oh, be quiet," Liz said as she was swung forward with another pingpong ball. She made a paranoid whine as she felt his hand slip a little bit. She felt only slightly better when his hand tightened to pull the trigger. His reflexes were so fast, though, she barely felt it happen.

Target after target was thrown to the sky and shot down with flawless accuracy. He began throwing them smoothly, and did so faster and faster. It was getting easier and he was getting more casual with it. His hands were getting looser and his shooting was getting quicker. It was becoming apparent that he'd done this a thousand times before, and needed to do something else.

"Oh! You should try doing two at once!" Patty offered abruptly. "I bet you could do it. It'd be so epic."

"Um..." Kid paused to think as another ball left his hand. "I don't think I should."

"But you could totally do it and it'd be cool!" she encouraged as it fell to the ground in three ragged pieces.

"That would break the pattern, though," he explained.

"Oh well. Do it anyway!" she said loudly.

"Patty..." he pleaded. He already had a rhythm and would prefer not to break it. He was comfortable and didn't want that to change.

"Come on. Just once. Please? This is getting boring." Patty implored.

"I don't know. I'm freaked out about all this anyway," Liz added, for once happy about Kid's obsession with patterns. "If he starting throwing more than one..."

"But I'm so bored!" the youngest sister groaned. "Target practice is always boring!"

"We are standing on top of a giant guillotine, which is for some reason in our front yard, while our Meister shoots pingpong balls out of the air, who is capable of pulling the trigger four times a second," Liz stated flatly.

"And it's super monotonous," she said.

"Well, I'm not doing it anyway so there's no sense in arguing," Kid said calmly.

"Okay..." Patty sighed disappointedly. There was quiet again, all accept for the gun shots and occasional pattering of plastic hitting concrete. The sun was getting lower in the sky and was at its peak brightness, though its face was drooling and its eyes almost closed. Kid squinted at its harsh luminosity, splotches of odd colored light burning themselves into his vision. The image of the sun floated in vibrant silhouettes all through his line of sight.

Still, despite this, his accuracy was nearly perfect. Sometimes one or two of the four shots might miss, but other than that, his shots were unerring. As he reached into the can on Liz's side, he noticed that there were exactly eight of the little white plastic spheres left at the bottom. There was also eight on his opposite side.

There was a temporary cessation in his movements as he stood still in thought. The two pistols were held loosely at his sides. He stared down at the ground so many feet below him, through the grass and off into somewhere else entirely as he contemplated.

"Alright," he said eventually.

"'Alright' what?" Liz asked confusedly. He twirled to two guns in his hands once just to adjust his grip, the small plastic skull that adorned them both smooth underneath his fingers once they were settled in his palms again.

Without speaking or warning them, he picked up Liz's can in his fingertips, the metal warm from the direct sun. He extended his arm behind him, the pingpong balls ratting slightly with the movement. Patty gasped.

"You gonna do it?" she asked excitedly.

"I guess," he breathed, pulling the can forward experimentally and then back again. Finally, he pulled the can back as far as he could, and then propelled it forward. He let it slip from his fingertips at the last second, the can gliding away smoothly and all of the little pingpong balls flying out of it.

Eight little targets scattered into the air, into the sky and into his line of sight above the fence. He held the two pistols out before him and pulled the triggers the fastest he could. He managed to shoot each ball once, and then aimed for the can as it headed toward the earth.

The triggers were wrenched madly, flashes of light blasting from their chambers fast enough to almost be one continuous stream. He followed the can downward, and shot at it until it crashed into the cobblestone street.

"Awesome sauce!" the youngest girl said as soon as his hands relaxed again.

"Not awesome," he hissed.

"What? Why not? You got all of them. It was really cool," Patty said unsurely.

"I only hit the can seven times. The last one missed," he said harshly.

"It was still pretty beast, though," she said, shrugging within her gun-shaped shell.

"Last one, then, I guess," he sighed, bending down to grab the final can. There was an apathy in his soul now that he'd screwed that last shot up. All he wanted to do was finish this and go inside. He slipped his fingers around the cans edge, holding it loosely along with Patty's grip.

He pulled his arm back one last time, proceeding then to drag it forward without paying much attention. As his arm extended in front of him, the can held loosely and awkwardly in his grip, he uncurled his fingers. The can left his grasp with far too much easiness. It flew toward the street, twirling over and over with the pingpong balls departing from it, flying in their own pattern. However, he did not shoot. Kid ceased all movement, his hand still extended out in front of him, terrifyingly and heart-stoppingly empty.

He didn't breathe. He couldn't move, or even blink as he watched the sun glint off the shiny metal surface of the pistol that was supposed to still be in his hand. She should still be in his hand. Why the _hell _wasn't she in his hand?

She was gone over the fence, and all he could do was watch. He couldn't catch her. There was no time to even think about moving, not that he could. His feet were rooted to the guillotine. Finally, horribly, there was a sickening _clack _and the sound of metal skidding on stone.

Why wasn't she still in his hand?

The can crashed to the ground just after she did, rolling in a half circle just a few feet away. He watched the pistol slide over the cobbles, missing all the cans and sliding all the way over to the opposite curb where she finally was forced to stop. All the little ping pong balls fell down soon afterward, raining into the street and bouncing and rolling in utter chaos with a thousand little _plik plik plik _'s.

Kid never closed his hand. Liz couldn't speak.

He jumped from the guillotine, falling for a few seconds before landing in the grass some thirty feet below. He sat Liz down carefully, but didn't wait for her to transform before running toward the fence. He barely noticed the flash of pink light behind him as he wrenched the front iron gate open.

Liz ran after him through the gate, watching her sister transform into her human form in the middle of the street. The light it produced was barely noticeable in the blinding, golden sun.

"Kid what the hell did you do!" she shrieked finally as the two hurried into the street. She didn't know what else to say to him. Perhaps she shouldn't be speaking to him at all.

"I- I don't- Patty are you okay?" was all he settled for when he couldn't think of a decent response. They both sat down next to the youngest Thompson, looking at her with wide eyes. She looked a little dazed.

"Patty, you alright?" Liz asked frantically. Patty blinked a few times before speaking.

"Yeah," she shook her head. "Yeah that was kinda fun actually," she said, a smile now replacing the dazed look. "We should do that again. It was like flying!"

"Your head is bleeding!" Liz practically screamed. A bewildered look held her eyes open wide.

"What?" Patty's smile faded as she cocked her head to the side confusedly. She brought her fingertips to her her head and then pulled them away to examine them. She saw no blood.

"Theres um, there's just a bit of a scrape on your forehead that's all," Kid said. Though his voice was quieter than Liz's he was no more composed. He gently moved some of her pale blond bangs to the side to look at it. To the side of her head, there was a smear of maroon. It wasn't until a thin strand of hair dragged itself through it that she felt the sting. She just barely winced.

"Then why do you look all freaked out?" Patty asked. "I feel fine."

For a moment, no one could think of anything to say. Patty stared at their dumbfounded faces, becoming more and more amused.

"Kid just threw you into the road," Liz stated after a few seconds.

Patty giggled, mostly at the grimace Kid made when the words fell from Liz's mouth.

Liz extended her hand to her sister, grabbing onto her wrist and helping her into a standing position. Patty adjusted her camouflage sweatshirt, pulling it back onto her shoulder and over her pink tank-top. She shoved her hands the pocket of her sweatshirt.

"I don't know what you're so worried about. Worse shit's happened," she said casually.

"Yeah... right..." Kid said curtly, staring at the ground as he stood up. He dusted off the knees of his jeans, rubbing away any dirt that may have embedded itself in the denim.

Patty grabbed his arm and shoved him slightly with her shoulder. "Quit'cher whining," she growled as she forced him to stumble to the side. Though, her harshness only lasted for a few seconds before escalating again into amusement. She laughed wholeheartedly and a little bit manically, stumbling in circles in her bright pink, oversized, sneakers.

Kid just stared at her in utter confusion until he finally had to sigh. "Well... I guess we should start picking this stuff up," he said, though he was still inwardly uncomfortable with himself, a feeling of guilt rolling in and out of his stomach.

"Before that crazy old lady comes and yells at us again," Liz added sourly as she jammed her hands into her pockets.

"Okay!" Patty gasped, trying to let her amusement die down.

As they collected bits of ruined pingpong balls and threw them into puncture coffee cans, Kid couldn't help but wonder how Patty could just let herself not care. Liz as well, he figured, should've been telling him how she knew this would happen. It didn't really seem to matter, though. They were all far too used to injuries. Perhaps he was the only one not used to them happening at home.

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><p><em>AN: I'm trying to be less literal. It's not working. Another chapter should be up soon, like I said. It's about a third of the way done. I wont make any guarantees, though, because school hasn't been going well._

_I hope the story was still good though. Reviews?_


	9. Mission

A/N: At the moment, the top two choices on my poll are tied for "an epic mission" and "JUST about kid" so... Heres an epic mission entirely from Kid's POV. I'm not planning on taking the poll down anytime soon though. Keep voting and I'll keep writing accordingly.

I don't own Soul Eater

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><p>Icy water shocked him to the core when there was no other option. It enveloped him in a way that seemed drastically sudden, swallowing him whole along with any light. It echoed through his ears, rushing and swirling around his head. Even when the millions of tiny bubbles that had surrounded him thinned, his vision was blurred and dim. It was as though he was on an entirely different plane. He felt weightless, but his clothes were heavy and resisted every move he made. The water felt thick as he dragged the two pistols through it, kicking furiously when it seemed he could not swim well with them in his hands.<p>

Something rushed by him, large and muscular and approximately the width of a school bus, which nearly touched his shoulder. The water around him warped and fizzed in its wake, shoving him over with the side of its cone-shaped shock wave. His eyes darted around to search for it in the darkness, looking for anything that was darker than this cold, empty, blackness. It was its soul, however, that gave it away. He saw the greenish yellow glow immediately as well as felt its presence with and unexplainable sense. It touched a nerve he could not name. He simply knew it was there.

Kid raised his two pistols and pulled the triggers simultaneously. A blast of magenta light erupted from each barrel and shot toward where he could feel the soul. They impacted something, creating a plume of water up to the surface and another shockwave that sent him backwards.

Something hit him soon afterwards, something thick and smooth and tough, that sent him back in the other direction. He could feel an ache in his side from the impact, but didn't focus on it. He turned in the water to face the direction of its soul and pulled the triggers again. More flashes of magenta light flew out of the gun barrels in rapid succession, temporarily spilling light into the darkness. Every shockwave, though, slammed into his chest and sent him further and further away. There was a heaviness in his ribcage when he momentarily ceased firing. He wanted to gasp from the force of each impact but could not.

Before he could think of what to do, he was struck again. This time, it was by something flat and made of bones with skin stretched thin between them. He felt cuts being carved into his skin by tiny spines, followed by salt water rushing into each gash and burning their edges. He sucked in a breath of water without thinking.

Kid kicked madly, trying to get himself to the surface as quickly as possible. When his shoes hindered his assent, he kicked them off along with his socks and into the depths below. There was no thought about this, even as a feeling of cool lightness rushed around his naked feet. He pulled himself upward, climbing through the water. More and more light was making it into the water as he went up. His head broke through the waves and into the void of oxygen. The world felt abruptly empty without the pressure of the water.

He instantaneously began to drag air into his lungs, but found that he could only breath so deeply before his body rejected it. His lungs ached and his breathes shook at the end of each inhalation. He took in the deepest breathe he could, though, and then closed his mouth and dove headfirst back into the darkness before his pistols could ask if he was alright. Their voices were distorted and much harder to hear underwater.

More shots came from the two barrels, blasting through the water with far more power than they ever would on land. They hit precisely where he knew the soul of the beast to be. He kept himself more distant, though, to avoid the shock wave. This would have to be a long range battle if it was to be underwater. He could feel the creature thrash through the water, sending warped water his way and alerting him to its exact position.

Kid shot again and again, to the point of there being practically no space between individual fires. What appeared to be a single shot could actually be five or more. Every shot hit its target, but didn't appear to be doing much damage. In fact, it seemed to be causing more problems than it was fixing.

Strike after strike came from the creature's tail, beating against his ribs and back and cutting up his skin and clothes. He could see glimpses of red swirling in the water when the light of his fire allowed. Suddenly though, he felt something hot and firm underneath his feet and over top his head. He reacted immediately by curling his head down and pulling his legs up. There was no time to swim away. He needed to protect his neck from being broken as the creature's jaws clamped down over him. He felt something enormous and quite sharp drive itself into his arm. His mouth tore open and a scream emptied by the water wrenched itself from his vocal cords and mixed with the red smoke swirling through the darkness.

Kid forced himself not to inhale again, though he couldn't entirely manage such a feat. He felt a soft, rough muscle writhe beneath him, shoving him to the side at first. He pulled the triggers madly as the muscle began to guide him backwards. Flashes of light blasted in all directions, pulling more red smoke from thousands of little holes.

He felt the surface beneath him fall away. His lungs were burning inside his ribs. He kicked backwards and then bolted upwards. He rushed vertically at the highest speed he could manage, waiting for the surface to near. Light did not bleed into the water this time, though. He kept waiting for it to come, but it never did. He just kept going up further and further. The darkness was not fading. Why wasn't the darkness fading? Just as he began to panic, his head broke the surface of the water and shot into emptiness. He felt his skin grow cold as he gasped for breath and stared at where he was. There was very little light, but he could tell there was a rock ceiling dripping water onto his head some forty feet above him. He did not remember entering a cave.

Kid began swimming forward quickly. He knew the creature was just below him. He knew it would only hesitate momentarily. He believed he'd managed to send a shot down its throat, which was why he had had this much time, but it was still very much alive. He could feel its soul wavelength nearing him rapidly. This was a dangerous place for him to be. He was lucky this air pocket was so large, or else he might have drown. Yes, he was very lucky. He dragged himself onto the rocks that surrounded the enormous pool he'd emerged from. His feet were cold on the rough, black stones and his clothes were heavy and clinging to his skin.

He could barely move his right hand, he realized suddenly. Liz was just barely in his weak fingertips, dripping with both water and sticky red blood. The fight was not over, though. Once he was about five feet onto the underground shore he turned around to face the water, lighted only by the small hole in the ceiling near the center which lit the water and cast pale blue webs of light across his pale skin.

"Hey, Kid, you alright?" Liz asked ask he panted, watching the thirty-foot expanse of water anxiously.

"Yeah," he said, water dripping down his face from his hair and running over his mouth as he spoke. "Soul resonance."

The order was given just in time for the surface of the water to be broken. An enormous white head about the size of a small car strongly resembling an eel shot up out of the water. It was followed by a black and white striped neck. Its eyes were blood red and its spine was laced with webbed spikes. Its teeth were sharp and about the same length as his arm, blood dripping from between them from all the bullet holes. Deep red splotches ruined the purity of its perfectly white face, dripping rubies down into its gums.

Kid felt Liz and Patty's souls connect to his own, sending a feeling of overwhelming power through him. He could feel their souls expanding together. Their forms began to shift over his arms, glowing and changing. He felt them cover his arms, becoming larger but no heavier.

Kid crouched down onto his knees to better control the two guns which now had changed to something resembling canons. He aimed them at the monster as it flexed and flared the frills on the sides of its jaw threateningly.

"Resonance is stable," Liz announce.

"Noise level is at 0.3 percent," Patty then stated.

"Feedback in 5...4...3...2..." the two counted off together. "Fire!"

Two enormous spheres of light flourished from the expanded barrels and shot toward the creature like rockets just as it opened its mouth to lunge. As it propelled itself forward, the spheres blasted into its mouth and down its throat. The creature was forced backward, twisting and craning its neck in unnatural directions as smoke plumed from its mouth.

It thrashed and screeched an awful scream, contorting its muscles in all directions until it fell back into the water. Just as it was about to hit the surface of the unsettled liquid, it burst into an array of shadows. The shadows ripples and swirled like smoke for several seconds before they dissipated into the air. They left behind nothing more than a tiny, glowing, yellow-green orb.

Kid lowered his weapons and allowed them to changed back into pistol form. He then sat them down on the ground with a soft clack which echoed maddeningly off the walls of the cave and the restless water.

Kid pulled himself into a standing position as the two pistols glowed magenta. He walked toward the water as the light morphed into two feminine silhouettes and then faded into the familiar forms of two girls.

Black lightning flurried from his hand and swarmed in circles beneath his palm until they produced what he needed. A skateboard fell onto the ground which he promptly stepped onto. The rough surface of the skateboard felt gritty beneath his bare feet. The metallic sound of mechanisms in the wheels clicked quietly as they flipped over and the board hovered a few inches over the ground.

With just his thoughts, Kid guided the skateboard over the water and toward the orb. Once it was within his reach, he reached out a hand and posed his fingers into shape of horns. He then flipped it over into an open palm.

"Conso..." he whispered sternly. The soul obeyed and was sucked into his hand in a soft beam of light.

Kid let out a deep breath, closing his eyes and hovering calmly where he was in silence for a few seconds. He eventually turned and flew back to the shore, landing the skateboard gracefully on the water's edge. He did not, however, summon it back.

Water dripped down his face and off his sagging clothes. His feet were bare and wet with tiny bits of gravel stuck to their bottoms. He would never get those shoes back, he realized. His arm was also probably broken.

"Well, thank god that's over," Liz said as he walked slowly over to where the two sisters were now sitting.

"Yeah," he said. "We aught to get going, though."

"Can't we rest for a minute or two?" she groused.

"We don't have time. I need to fix my arm," he responded, unconsciously grabbing his right wrist.

"Your arm?" she sounded alarmed. "Are you okay?" Kid's bones didn't break very easily. Shiningami were made of tougher stuff than humans. He could see her eyeing his bloodied limb warily.

"Yeah its fine. It'll probably be better in a day or two," he reassured her as she gently grabbed his wrist from him. "Ah, don't touch, though, okay?" he hissed through gritted teeth.

"Oh sorry," she apologized quickly as she let go. "You're alright to carry us, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "It'll be fine. Now hurry up and transform. We killed that stupid thing, now lets get out of here."

"Alright," Liz sighed. Patty agreed more enthusiastically and the two shifted into light again. The beams of light flew into his hands, landing perfectly in his grip and solidifing into two identical shiny, metal pistols.

Again, though, Liz just dangled in his fingertips, his pinkie the only thing keeping her from falling. When he stepped onto the skateboard and began to lift into the air, he began to worry he might drop her. However, all he could focus on now that the energy from the battle had left him, was how massively asymmetrical his arms were at the moment.

One of them was perfectly fine, and the other had virtually no feeling, though it still was somehow hurting. Not only that, but he was pretty sure his fingers were starting to turn purple. He didn't really feel like looking down to check, though. He'd rather not know until he was absolutely forced to.

Kid navigated swiftly up through the hole in the ceiling of the cave. Rock surrounded them and created a narrow tunnel. It was beginning to grow narrower as well. This was becoming apparent alarmingly fast. It was beginning to create a potential problem, especially when the edges of the skateboard abruptly scraped against walls.

He ceased his assent immediately and looked up. He could see the opening just a few feet above him, sunlight pouring through and onto his face, creating diamonds out of the beads of water dripping from his hair. He altered the board's position so that it was very nearly vertical, changing the angle of the wheels with it so that the air current jetting from them was still facing downward. He gripped its edge tightly so as not to fall off and then willed it upward once more.

His assent was kept slow, though, as the tunnel was still narrowing. His shoulders brushed against the stone walls, creating an uncomfortable tightness around his already unsettled body. He forced the skateboard to become more and more vertical and ended up having to grip it was both hands, though his second hand did very little. He noticed, accidentally, that it was in fact tinged a sickly plum color.

He grimaced and closed his eyes, trying to will away the claustrophobia building in his chest. He only had about a foot more to go. He was nearly out. Finally, his shoulders were out in the open and he was able to navigate his full way out. He let out his breath and opened his eyes, releasing his grip on his skateboard and allowed it to become horizontal again. He straightened into a standing position and took in his surroundings, trying to determine just where he was.

Bright green grass waved and ripple below him, being bullied into position by the current from his board. Behind the hole he'd emerged from was the face of an enormous jagged rock, and before him was the edge of a cliff which plunged down onto a beach with black sand. Water washed over the sand, foaming white and contrasting starkly with the inky mineral. Thin trees sparsely populated the landscape, just frail looking things.

"How the hell did we get here?" Liz inquired.

"I guess we went into an underwater cave at some point," Kid speculated. "We must have been moving around a lot. Then of course there's the current that's supposed to be strong around here."

"Damn. That must be one hell of a current," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed. Then he paused and stared at the ground. "Liz, I might have to carry you in the same hand as Patty." He sounded incredibly uneasy.

"Well, that's alright with _me_," she said. However, they both knew that that wasn't the problem. He didn't make the move to change her into his other hand.

"It'll be fine. Its not a big deal," she encouraged. "You'll be asymmetrical either way, so at least this way it wont be dangerous."

"Yeah," he agreed halfheartedly. When he still didn't move, she sighed.

"Look. I'm not in the mood to scream at you over this, so just do it, okay? You're not going to die," she told him sternly.

Kid didn't say anything.

"Kid..." she groaned. "I'm so sick of you doing this. It's like you live in your own imaginary little world where symmetry is the only thing that actually matters. Just carry me and Patty in the same hand and get it over with."

"It's not like that," he said quietly.

"You're being irrational," she told him. He only continued to stare at the rippling blades of grass below them. "Fine. I'll just do it for you, then."

Before he could protest, she turned to light and swirled into his other hand's grip to rest neatly against her sister. The grip felt odd in his hand. There was far too much weight on one arm and not on the other. He felt unbalanced. He felt wrong. He felt confused. He felt something as well that was close to the claustrophobia he'd felt in the tunnel. The tightness in the chest from the water in his lungs only got worse.

"I can't do this," he breathed.

"Yes you can. Just relax and don't think about it," Liz assured him.

"Yeah. It's okay!" Patty added.

"No it isn't," he insisted in a panicked voice. The skateboard suddenly disappeared from beneath him in a flurry of skulls and black sparks. He fell squarely on the ground and took a few quick steps over to the face of the rock. He leaned against its hard surface and slid down onto the ground.

The two pistols changed back into girls. Patty crouched down on the ground next to him. She would have laughed, but she was too busy staring at his arm. Kid, his head buried in his knees, jerked to the side slightly when she decided to grab it. Pain shot through his entire arm and then through his chest when he gasped.

"That's super nasty," Patty marveled, examining his damaged limb in her hands. "It's all purple and bloody and swollen and you can see the bone sticking out and everything!"

"Ew! Patty that's gross!" Liz shrieked.

"Look at it!" Patty told her sister, pointing specifically at the exposed part where his shirt was completely shredded.

Liz screamed a long sting of ew's shortly after, clearly having looked at his arm, though Kid didn't see her face. He heard her gag a bit as well.

"Oh my god, can you just carry us home so that we can get that fixed?" Liz yelled in a shrill voice.

"I can't," Kid said shakily. "I can't carry you both in one hand. It makes me sick."

Liz groaned loudly and frustratedly. It also became apparent to him, suddenly, that he was holding himself very stiffly and shaking slightly. Then he became aware of how cold it was being on top of a windy cliff in soaking wet clothes and no shoes. Then he thought of how it felt to hold them in only one hand. He sucked in a deep breath, though it was rejected by his lungs before it became too deep. He coughed.

"I don't know what to do," he said finally, angrily.

"Just carry us both in one hand. It'll be fine," Liz told him again.

"I can't. I'll be sick," he objected. His nausea and panic could be heard in his voice.

After another pause Liz spoked quietly. "You know, I feel like I'm your babysitter when this crap happens."

Kid only glared at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Maybe I can carry Liz and ride on beelzebub with you," Patty offered. Kid lifted his head to look at her contemplatively.

"No. You wouldn't be able to withstand the speed in your human form," he explained. He leaned his head back against the rock. He looked briefly at Liz who was being very careful not to look at him. He knew she was quite squeamish, at least with things like this. Blood itself didn't usually bother her. It was just that his arm was more than a bit bloody.

He sighed. "My rings and tie are going to tarnish," he said suddenly.

"No one cares about that now!" Liz snapped. She looked absolutely furious at him.

There was a silence where Kid looked away from her and just stared at the grass before him, watching it sway slightly in the wind. He had one option, but he knew they wouldn't like it much. Or at least, Liz wouldn't. Patty didn't seem to be bothered by it as much, or simply just didn't complain about it. Patty didn't really see it the same way Liz did.

"I could put you in my pockets," he offered hesitantly.

Kid and Patty both looked at Liz and waited for her to answer. She had a very irritated and disgusted look on her face. Her internal conflict was embossed deep into her features.

"That's weird," was all she said.

"You're being immature," Kid said.

"_I'm _being immature?" she said with wide eyes. "Me? Not you?"

"Liz, please," he pleaded.

"I don't understand why you can't just carry both of us in one hand," she said angrily.

"My arms are asymmetrical enough as it is, Liz. Please? I wont make you do this again," he begged. Liz glared at him with harsh eyes. She clearly was unhappy with this decision.

"You are such a spoiled freaking brat, you know that? I can't believe I'm doing this for you," she said through her teeth.

"Thank you," Kid breathed. "I'll make it up to you. I swear."

"You had freaking better," she told him severely.

"Thank you," he said again as he pushed himself up. He still refused to look at his arm.

The skateboard was summoned back and he stepped on it quickly with cold, dirtied feet. His damp pants wrapped themselves underneath his heels, sticking there and becoming dirty and grimy as well. Liz and Patty were placed in his pockets soon afterward. Liz was even less happy about this being his clothes were wet. Though, they thankfully dried out on the ride home, the wind tearing the water from the fibers. He'd have to do something to repay her for doing this for him. He was getting tired of being the spoiled brat.

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><p><em>AN: that was... done faster than expected...hmm... should I even post this now? I feel like thats almost too fast of an update... hmm... well... I guess if your reading this then I posted it so theres not really a point in typing this..._

_reviews make me happy. _


	10. Pride

_A/N: _CHAPTER TEN! SHAZAM! Thank you, everyone, for reading to this point. Thank you, reviewers, for motivating me to keep writing. I'm glad I've so far succeeded at making the characters all act like themselves. Also, sorry for the typos. I promise I'll work harder at trying to fix them. I'm not good at being mushy so this thank you thing isn't that great, unfortunately, but still, thanks. You're awesome. :p_ _

_Btw, this takes place when they've been his weapons for maybe... a little less than a month I think? So Liz and Patty are still pretty much street girls._

__To xxxrosegardenxxx: First, thankyou very much. Second, I DO have a story I've been working on about Kid's childhood. It's mainly about how he lived with his father/ how he was treated/ how his OCD developed etc. :) I've also been thinking of one for the Thompsons...__

_I Don't Own Soul Eater_

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><p>Kid jumped as a sudden loud, long noise sounded from beneath the floor. He gasped loudly and the picture he'd been straightening fell to the floor with a clatter. The glass smashed and he quickly stepped backward, avoiding the shards to the best of his abilities.<p>

"Fuck..." he hissed under his breath, clenching his fists and glaring at the mess of shattered glass and wrinkled canvas before him. He then silently cursed his two partners for teaching him how to swear.

The noise from downstairs came again, longer this time and then followed by a string of much more random noise. He realized, eventually, that it was the piano. It was an echoey, distorted and strained noise. It was horrible, painful to listen to. It was nothing but random notes being slammed and bashed into existence where they most certainly were not supposed to be. Quite honestly, it sounded like a chorus of dying cats.

He wasn't sure, as he stood staring at the mess before him, what exactly was more urgent. Should he clean the mess up first and _then _see who was murdering his piano and eardrums (though he already had a pretty good hunch as to who it was) or should he save the antique and incredibly expensive grand piano immediately? As another loud smash traveled up through the floor, he made up his mind.

Kid took one last grimacing look at the broken painting before turning around and walking frustratedly down the hall. He hurried down the wide, curved, staircase, his socks beating rhythmically atop the steps. He paced determinedly through the halls and turned swiftly around corners as he followed the horrific sound. He eventually made it to the heavy double doors of the ballroom. He wrapped his fingers around the silver handles and then pushed them wide open.

They flew open with ease, but he still sent them banging against the white walls with all the unnecessary force he put into it. The room was empty accept for the shiny black grand piano and the young girl playing it. Or rather, the young girl playing _with _it. She froze as soon as the doors opened and did not turn around right away. Kid sighed from his position in the doorway. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his dress pants and walked calmly over to the piano.

"Patty, why must you insist on killing everything in sight?" he asked somewhat pleadingly.

"I'm not killing nothing," Patty turned around on the stool and leaned forward on her hands.

"So then you admit you _are_ killing something?" Kid said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"No," Patty defended. "I said I'm not killing nothing!"

"Then by 'not' killing 'nothing' you are killing 'something'" he explained. Patty just stuck out her tongue in response.

"You know what I meant," she said. "I was playing the piano."

"No. You were smashing it," he scolded. "Could you please not? I don't need all of my stuff broken."

"I wasn't gonna break it," the blonde crossed her arms childishly. "'Sides. You said when you let us move in..." she pointed accusingly at him, "...that this was _our _house too. So it's not just your stuff no more."

"Yeah, I did say that but-"

"But what?" she glared at him menacingly.

"Um," Kid paused, finding himself actually intimidated by the girl. "Well, it's just that this piano is really old and expensive. It's been in this house a lot longer than I have and I just don't want it to get broken, okay?"

"But I'm bored," Patty whined. "There's nothing to do here and Liz is asleep and all you do is clean all day and Liz wont get up and you don't ever do anything with me and I'm so so so so so _so so so _freaking bored."

Kid leaned up against the piano and looked at his feet. He then turned to look at her again. He was beginning to realize how hard being here actually was for her. Patty was a mass of boundless energy who was used to living a life with constant struggles that left no moment of the day empty. She was now stuck in a mansion with nothing to worry about. Though that was certainly a good thing, it also left her with nothing to do. Aside from training in the morning and the occasional mission, she was left to wander around aimlessly for the entire day.

"What would you like to do then?" he asked calmly. Patty looked slightly astonished. He'd never really offered to do anything with her in the weeks they'd been living together. Now that he was, though, she didn't know what she wanted.

"What do you do when you're bored?" she asked when no ideas came to mind.

Kid wasn't usually bored. His head was almost always filled with the anxiety and worry that something might be out of place or that he might never live up to his own name whenever he was not training to be a meister or to be a proper reaper. This of course, was only _almost _always. Some of the cleaning and straightening he did was _actually _simply because he had nothing better to do. He'd lived like this his entire life and was therefore well adjusted to it. In fact, he was very attached to it. Doing things any other way felt strange and wrong to him. He almost always hated changes. Almost.

"I don't know," he admitted, adjusting his sleeve. The red of his shirt contrasted against the olive tones in his skin, making him a bit less pale looking than normal.

She looked disappointed.

"I just don't usually have time to be bored, is all," he added.

Patty blew a strand of blonde hair out of her face and a contemplative look molded itself into her features. As she thought of something to do, Kid began wondering what exactly was making him so relaxed lately. He was having an easier time ignoring his compulsions. He was still bothered by the broken painting upstairs, yes, but he was able to stand here in spite of it. It was absolutely wonderful, but he couldn't help but be confused by it.

"You should take me to get ice cream!" Patty concluded suddenly, standing up so fast she nearly tipped the stool over. Before Kid could even respond, his wrists were being gripped tightly and he was being pulled out of the ballroom.

"Wait, Patty!" he objected. "Wait!"

He hadn't been expecting her to, but she did actually stop. She turned and looked at him with a look of apprehension, hoping he hadn't changed his mind.

"I need to do something first," he explained. "Then we'll go."

Patty's face returned to being excited. "Okay. I'm 'onna follow you, then," she announced.

"Alright then," he accepted. "I just need to clean-"

"Why do you _always _have to clean?" she whined, her shoulders falling.

"-up a broken picture frame," he finished, his voice falling into a sigh. "I'd rather not have broken glass all over the floor. It'll bother me the entire time."

"O-oh," she nodded. "Okay!"

Patty followed him upstairs as he got a dustpan from the closet as well as the vacuum and then continued to the spot of the apparent mess. She watched, becoming steadily more bored, as he swept up the glass shards in the hallway. She sat up against the wall with her hands clutching her ankles. After a while, her mind began to wander.

"Hey, Kid?" she asked.

"Yeah?" he returned as he swept the shattered pieces into the dustpan.

"I've been wondering something lately," she said. "What does Lord Death look like without his mask? Since he's your dad you should know, right?"

Kid stopped what he was doing and froze. He didn't look at her. He kept all of his attention on the floor.

"Does he look kinda like you?" she continued inquisitively.

"I, ah..." he paused, wetting his lips. "I don't really want to talk about that, Patty."

"Aww, why not?" She looked quite disappointed. "I really wanna know."

"I know, but my dad doesn't really want anyone to know," he said somberly. He began sweeping again, though he was moving slower now.

"How come?" she said with a slight whine in her voice.

"I don't know. I never asked him," he told her without looking at her.

"Do you know what he looks like at all?" she asked, cocking her head to the side with mild worry in her eyes.

"I said I can't talk about that," he said softly.

"But do you? Yes or No." she pushed.

Kid didn't respond.

"Do you?" she asked one more time.

"I can't talk about it so just drop it, Patty," he said warningly. He dumped the broken pieces into a waste basket he'd taken from his bedroom down the hall. They scraped off the metal dust pan and clattered into the plastic lined bin. He watched them fall far too closely.

Patty frowned at his response and watched him with large, unusually focused eyes.

"It's okay if you don't," she said. "I don't know what my dad looks like either."

Kid straightened up and stared down the long hallway to the door at the very end with eyes that were somewhere else entirely.

"Me 'n' Liz havn't seen him since we were real little when he left. I don't 'member him much. Liz says he was a dick. She hates him. I probably do to."

He turned to look at her. "How can you only 'probably' hate someone?"

"I dunno. I don't know him, but he left us alone so he'd probably a douche. But I don't know." Her voice sounded so innocent and childish. He sometimes wondered why. He had a good feeling she did it on purpose, either to sound cute or for some other reason.

Kid nodded and looked down at the dustpan in his grip and then sent his eyes back to beyond the end of the hall. He swallowed hard.

"But my father isn't like that," he said. "He didn't... do anything like that. He's not an absent parent or anything. Or, at least, not entirely absent. He cares. It's different. He just doesn't like to tell me things, I guess."

"So you don't know what he looks like?" she said disappointedly.

"No," he shook his head.

"Aww." She slouched. "I really want to know."

"Yeah," he sighed. "So do I."

He leaned down and lifted the broken frame. The Rorschach test it had held was crumpled slightly at the edges. The frame was actually fixable as it had only broken on the seam in the corner. He could likely glue it and then find new glass for it. He just had to make sure he did it neatly...

"So who's your mom?" Patty asked next.

"Patty, how about no more questions about anything to do with my family," he said as he carefully pulled the inkblot from its frame so as not to wrinkle it further.

"Okay," she agreed begrudgingly, rolling her eyes to the side and letting her shoulders dip.

"Thank you," he said. His eyes softened slightly and he moved to plug in the vacuum with the intent of removing any small pieces of glass he may have missed. However, he no longer had time to do so as Patty's attention span had run out.

"I wanna show you somthin'!" she said abruptly. She grabbed his wrists and pulled him from his task. Kid made several attempts at protest, but eventually just ended up running with her to where ever she happened to be taking him.

Patty eventually pulled him through the door of her bedroom, which he actually had only seen once or twice since it was given to her. He tended to stay out being that Patty was extremely messy and also did not appreciate him cleaning for her. She said she liked it the way it was and that whenever he cleaned she couldn't find things anymore. It had been a fairly large argument which Kid had had no hope of winning.

As always, her room was a mess with her clothes and other belongings strew over the floor and furniture. He stepped carefully in between everything, trying very hard to ignore his compulsion to make this room more orderly. Kid really hoped they wouldn't be in here long. He counted at least three pairs of underwear on the floor that may or may not be clean. There was also a bra on her desk, mixed in with various papers and books from school as well as random scribbles she'd drawn and plenty of origami.

Patty was under her bed, digging for something. How she'd managed to get under there with everything in the way, however, he hadn't quite figured out. While she couldn't see him, he couldn't help but try and straighten her bed. He fixed the pillows and straightened the covers and removed the previous nights pajamas from the mix. He made sure to do it fast so that she wouldn't see him doing it when she crawled back out.

She pushed herself up, dragging with her an enormous cardboard box. She heaved it onto the bed and then dumped its entire contents onto the previously neatened covers.

"Isn't it freaking awesome?" she squealed happily, clasping her hands together and bouncing lightly. She cast an excited and admiring eye down onto what could only be described as a mess. It was a pile of random things you might find in an elementary school art room as well as a few other odds and ends. There were rainbow pipe cleaners, pom-poms, beads of all sizes and shapes, yarn, thread, glue, markers, crayons, several jars of paint, a thick booklet of construction paper, glitter, scissors, fabric samples, a teaspoon, a mason jar, fifteen bottle caps, a ruler, a sock, more glitter, bendy straws, a very ruined magazine, a sixteenth bottle cap, and a barbie doll which, though it didn't look like it from the way its face was drawn all over and half of its hair was cut off, was probably fairly new. There were more things mixed in too, which he could not properly identify.

Kid looked at the pile of random objects warily. Patty most certainly could be quite destructive with such items...

"You should do stuff with me with this!" she told him.

"I thought you wanted ice cream," he said, eyes flashing back and forth nervously between the mess and his friend.

"Yeah, but this'll be more fun. Plus Liz said-" she stopped herself suddenly and clapped a hand over her mouth.

"What? What did Liz say?" Kid asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," she said, trying her best to sound innocent.

"Are you sure?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Uh-huh!" She made herself sound happy. She was lying. He could tell very easily. He didn't push it though. He'd find out soon enough.

"Where did you get all of this stuff anyway?" he asked her, leaning forward onto the bright blue comforter.

"Oh! That's easy. Liz bought it for me," she said.

"With what money?" Kid pressed, starting to become agitated.

"She said she stole money from you, but that you wouldn't mind so long as you never found out," she smiled.

Kid let out a short, gruff, sigh and let his head hang down. Patty's face fell into realization after a moment.

"Oops..." she said. "Sorry."

Kid rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger rather roughly. "No, it's... it's fine, I guess..."

"Yay!" she accepted quickly, climbing onto the bed. "Now, we're going to make something, kay?"

"Make, what, exactly?" Kid asked, sitting cautiously on the edge of the mattress. He couldn't help but start organizing the items immediately. He didn't even think about it. He started by straightening all the bottle caps into two even squares. He was glad there were sixteen, a multiple of eight.

"I dunno. Something," she answered. She grabbed the construction paper first and ripped out a bright green piece. She started folding it and ripping it in a way that made much more sense to her than it did Kid.

"You don't have plan?" he asked hesitantly.

"Nope!" Patty said as she ripped another piece, this time purple, from the book.

Kid finished organizing the bottle caps and moved on to making all of the pipe cleaners pin straight. He stopped paying attention to Patty all together after a while, keeping his head down and his eyes focused as he worked. He ran his fingers over the wire over and over again. He had to make it perfect again.

"That's not what your s'pose to do," Patty said after a while, disappointment obvious in her voice.

He looked up to find that his neck had become stiff. "I have to organize it first," he said.

"No you don't," she said. "Here!" She snatched the orange pipe cleaner from his hand that he'd worked so hard to make perfect and began bending it into a random shape. She rapped it around itself over and over again, quickly making it into something new. He watched with uncertainty as well as irritation.

After only a few seconds she held it up. "See? It's a tiger!" she said as she handed it back to him, now in the rough shape of a cat-like creature. He looked at the tiny thing in between his fingertips scrutinizingly.

"This is usually something children do, Patty," he said quietly.

"So?" she accused. "That don't mean anything."

"Doesn't," he corrected.

"What ever!" she sighed exasperatedly. "It's just s'pose to be fun."

Kid stared at the pipe-cleaner creature unsurely. Patty was so incredibly childish. He kept wondering why. He looked at her lap to see just what she'd done with the construction paper and found she'd made it into bright colored frog.

"What did Liz say?" he asked again.

"Huh?" She cocked her head to the side.

"What you said a minute ago," he reminded her.

"Oh," she remembered. "She told me not to tell you."

"Tell me what?" he pressed.

"I'm not saying nothing!" she crossed her arms defiantly.

"So then you are saying something?" he smirked.

"Stop it!" she demanded. "I'm not gonna tell you."

Kid sighed. She listened to Liz much more than she listened to him. She would never spill her secrets, so long as she remembered not to. He picked up another pipe cleaner and started straightening it.

Patty blew a strand of hair out of her face and pouted, but then took several pipe cleaners for herself. "You're super bad at this," she told him casually. "Your s'pose to be making pretty shit."

"Neat _is _pretty," he said.

"But it's _boring,_" the blonde complained. "You only like boring things that are all neat and plain and black and white."

Kid only shrugged.

"Why don't you ever do anything fun? I bet you'd be happy if you did," she said. "I bet it's why you're never happy."

"What do you mean 'never happy'?" he asked as he looked at her quite seriously.

"Well, you're always walking around looking all pissed and you bitch about alotta things," she explained.

"Is that what Liz said?" he concluded. As he thought it over, he began wondering if Liz had put her up to the task of entertaining him, knowing that Patty would want to show everyone her new things.

When Patty just gave him a blank look, he sighed. He ran his fingers over the pipe cleaner again, the friction making it hot under his thumb and forefinger.

"I need to go finish cleaning up the painting," he said after several seconds of silence. He slid off the bed, leaving the pipe cleaner with Patty. She didn't stop him. All she did was watch him walk out her door, a glare slowly reshaping her eyes.

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><p>Liz rolled over in her bed, her arms wrapped tightly around her blanket. She blinked tiredly, not really wanting to be awake at the moment. Her bed was just so comfortable and her sheets smelled so sweet and felt so nice. It didn't matter how long she'd stay here, she'd always appreciate the feeling of a clean bed. She forced her eyes open, though, when she realized she was still wearing her jeans as well as how uncomfortable they were to sleep in.<p>

They felt twisted and tight as she rolled over onto her back. Her eyes felt very tired, more so than they would when she woke up in the morning. She rubbed them furiously, trying to force them open. She must have been woken up by something, she realized. She felt like she had for some reason.

As she adjusted her bra, which had also twisted into an awkward position, she found out just what it was. Someone was knocking on her door. She pulled the covers off and sat up.

"What?" she called drowsily as she ran her hand over the back of her hair which was now quite messy. As she placed her feet onto the floor, the wood felt abruptly cold on her toes, but only to the right foot. One of her socks was gone.

The door opened to a very irate looking Kid, who strode into the room so elegantly yet also so angrily. His face was hard, passive aggressive.

"Oh let me guess," she said as soon as he entered. "I put the milk back into the fridge on the wrong side so it isn't symmetrical anymore, right?"

"Not exactly," he said, his hands folded behind his back. His posture was quite serious. For a moment she thought they might have been given a mission. That was, until he spoke.

"The box of... _stuff_ you gave to Patty," he said. It took her a moment to comprehend in her tired state, but she eventually figured out what he was talking about.

"What about it?" She asked, standing up and running a hand through the knot in her hair, desperately trying to loosen it. She walked over to her vanity, shoulders slumped, and picked up a hair brush. She dug it furiously into her locks as she listened. However he stayed silent, his seriousness replaced by something nervous, as though he didn't know exactly when he'd meant to say. He bit his lip and looked to the floor.

"Is she making a mess with it?" Liz asked when he didn't respond right away.

"No, no," he said. "Well, yes, but it's in her bedroom so I suppose it doesn't matter much..." There was a harsh grimace in his features. He'd gone in her bedroom.

"I thought you were supposed to stay out of Patty's room," she said. After all, that rule was imposed to protect everyone's safety including his own.

"She brought me there," he said, his confidence finding its way back into his voice and posture. "Now um, about this stuff..." he paused. "Why did you get it for her?"

"Um, to entertain her?" she said with a confused tone in her voice. Kid paused with a disbelieving look on his face before he spoke again.

"How exactly did you buy it, by the way?" he asked with focused eyes.

"I saved some money up with side jobs from the academy," she said simply. She didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on her reflection, pretending to be very concentrated on making her hair perfect.

Kid didn't say anything again. He looked at her unwaveringly until she turned to face him.

"What?" Her eyes were wide and her features were forcibly disgusted. Her lip remained snared as she turned back to the mirror, her eyebrows scrunched slightly more than if she were genuinely confused.

"How much did you take?" he sighed after several seconds had passed.

"I didn't_ take_ anything from you. I told you, I got one of those side job thingies," she told him irately. "You know, like the ones little freshies get when they spent all their money on stupid shit 'steada food?"

"Are you really going to try to lie to me?" he asked calmly.

"Oh you've gotta be fuckin' kidding me," she growled. "Get out."

"Liz, I can see your soul," he stated matter-of-factly. "I just want to know how much you took. I'm not mad. I just need to know."

Liz was quiet as she just glared at him. She slammed the brush down on her dresser and grabbed onto his shoulders, gripping them as tightly as she could.

"Get out of my room, brat," she whispered as threateningly as possible.

"Patty already told me, so stop," he told her calmly. She was rather touchy lately. She'd been trying to quit smoking. After a moment of hesitation, she pulled herself away form him.

She stared at the floor with her arms crossed tightly, her fingers secured rigidly around them. Her eyes were harsh, hidden by intense eyebrows and a mane of bedraggled strawberry blonde hair. She shifted on her feet, twisting her toes. It was a several moments before she finally spoke.

"It was about thirty bucks all together," she said, her quiet voice a mixture of remorse and anger. "Maybe thirty-five."

Kid sighed and threaded his fingers together neatly.

"It was for her birthday," she defended suddenly, furiously. Her eyes were a deadly, accusing glare that even the son of the Grim Reaper would admit to be threatening. "Her birthday was last week."

He looked at her for only a moment before making every effort to look elsewhere. His eyes flashed to every corner of the room, as guilt and panic took over. He rocked slightly on his feet and licked his lips.

"Alright, well..." he said, attempting to sound composed as a cloud of anxiety loomed over him. Per haps if he could only keep it at bay long enough to leave the room. "I'll just be going then."

Kid then marched out the room and quickly closed the door behind him. He could still feel her glare hot on the back of his neck, burning through the door.

He'd thought he'd done it for him. Why did he _always _think things were for him? He took deep breaths as he walked down the hallway to his own room. He felt deeply nauseated, sick with himself.

He wrapped his fingers around his temples while his stomach screamed at him for his idiocy. His feet moved as fast as they could. He needed to get to his room before his panic completely took over. This was one thing that he did _not _want to explain. He didn't want to think about it. He would never speak of it again.

The painting, also, would not get cleaned up that day.

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><p><em>AN: This was one of the first fics that were meant to go in this collection. It was supposed to be the first or second thing after the three opening chapters. I started it in August. I stopped when I barely had any left to do. WHY HASN'T THIS BEEN FINISHED UNTIL NOW!_

_Also, HOORAY FOR KID HAVING FLAWS OTHER THAN OCD! :D_


	11. Identity Crisis

_A/N: WHY IS THIS SO LONG? Seriously! What the hell! WHY! How did this happen!_

_Oh... and um... Something relevant to this fic's plot... uh...hmm... let's see... Oh! this takes place right after Kid is taken out of the book of Eibon, since I feel like BlackStar jacked Liz and Patty's character development._

_Btw, the angst. It is intense. Though I'm trying to make it not ridiculous and still within the realm of believability._

_But I really need to do something this break besides playing videogames. I've been doing nothing but interchanging between playing Half Life and Skyrim for the past three days and the headcrab-zombies are haunting me. o.e_

_Anyway... I don't own SoulEater_

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><p>Kid collapsed into the couch in the sitting room off the foyer as soon as he walked into the house. He had no other priorities. He didn't even have the energy to make it to the genuinely comfortable couch in the den. He did not slip off his shoes. He did not go upstairs to take a shower and change out of his ruined shirt. He simply collapsed.<p>

The couch squeaked and dipped, if only as much as it could. He sank into the large number of pillows and throw blankets that buried most of the black and white stripes and blocked the hard-wood arm from coming into harsh contact with his skull. He inhaled the soft, clean scent of his home, which he had never really acknowledged before. It had never smelled so good to him. He'd never been away for so long. He'd also never been so exhausted.

His eyelids fell closed, heavily weighted by the need to sleep. His eyes felt so perfectly comfortable that way, there was no sense in ever opening them again. All his muscles, all his bones, every nerve agreed. Nothing would make him move. All his joints, though they ached like mad, were lax and abided to any position. The velvety fabric of the victorian couch felt far too perfect against his skin, as did the knitted blanket beneath his face.

He twisted his fingers through the small loops that made up the throw, clutching it in his fist and holding it there. His other hand was buried in his own hair, beneath his head, pressed into a smooth satin pillow. His head was enveloped in oncoming unconsciousness. Infinite blackness stretched out before him, welcoming him to fall in.

He unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth, passing it across his stinging, dry lips. He twisted them, trying to unstick them from his gums. His tongue felt dry as well, sticky, uncomfortable. He was quite thirsty.

There was still the blackness, staring intently at him and waiting. He thought, suddenly, maybe he shouldn't trust it. Maybe that that wasn't what he needed. The roof of his mouth was so rough, so dry. That blackness...

He flexed his fingers wrapped in the blanket, feeling the cottony texture around them as well as the fibers of the pillow beneath as his nails as they slipped over it. There was an odd feeling rolling in his stomach as he stared into the emptiness of his eyelids, the slight feeling of tipping forward swimming around his head. Perhaps he should just let himself fall in. But he didn't know what to think of it, of all this nothingness.

The dryness was in his throat as well. He swallowed, but it did nothing to help. He felt someone grip his foot, the distinct impression of fingers wrapping around his shoe. Another hand was on his ankle. He felt his shoe be slipped off and cool air rush into the fibers of his sock and around his toes. Maybe he should just open his eyes. Maybe this emptiness was not something he wanted.

He felt another hand grip his other foot, removing his remaining shoe with gentle ease. He forced his lids open a tiny fraction, trying to abandon the blackness. His eyes did not want to obey him, though, and quickly closed again without his consent. It was as though they were magnetized together.

There was a hollow feeling in his stomach, though, that was becoming more and more apparent the longer he lay there. It was becoming increasingly harder to ignore, screaming louder at him and demanding his attention.

He heard someone talking to him as well. Probably Liz, he figured. They asked him a question. The answer to this question apparently was a "yes", as that was the one he gave. What the question had been, though, he did not remember.

His mouth still felt tacky and his lips still stung. The blackness before his eyes wasn't trustworthy yet either. He thought it might feel like madness, thought he felt that sickly, dizzying wavelength, like liquid radio static. His fingers further tangled themselves in the knitted blanket uncomfortably. It was hard to tell just what he was feeling. It could most certainly be madness. Maybe he was imagining it.

He realized suddenly that his arms were somewhat cold. Then he remembered his sleeves were gone. There was a blanket right under his head, up against his face. He could use that. But then, it had already become the perfect temperature and the pillow beneath it was almost guaranteed not to be quite as soft. He twisted his fingers through it unconsciously. Moving it would require too much effort anyway.

His shirt had no sleeves, though. His shirt was ruined. And where was his jacket? And his broach? They were gone, now. It didn't matter much, but he'd had that broach for a very long time, as long as he could remember. It wasn't exactly a common thing either. It functioned like his father's mask, changing with his emotions. Of course, it was not quite as sensitive as his father's. It did not pick up on such subtlety. It would surely be missed, though.

His suspenders as well... Were they gone? No... He could feel them. They were twisted rather awkwardly around his legs, in fact. Now that he noticed, it was somewhat uncomfortable. They coiled around his thighs, and the metal clips that held them to his pants were digging into his abdomen. Sleeping with them on would not be very comfortable.

That hollowness in his stomach swelled into his chest and started to turn to nausea. The dryness in his mouth as well was becoming unbearable.

He scrunched his toes together, bringing back the thought that he was still wearing the same socks as he had been for the past three weeks. And the same shirt. And pants. And underwear.

He needed to change his clothes. He needed to take a shower, or perhaps three. He needed to eat. He needed to get something to drink.

He needed to get up.

He also needed to sleep, which he was already getting close to. Though, there was still something he didn't like about the darkness below him he'd need to fall through in order to get there. It might still feel like madness. He thought he felt static. Everything felt distorted as well. Nothing made much sense. It was so much like insanity.

His body didn't want to move and his eyes still refused to stay open. No matter how much he wanted to do other things, sleep was his body's top priority at the moment. It was not going anywhere.

He hadn't straightened any of the picture frames in three weeks, nor had any of the toilet paper been folded.

He groaned his displeasure to no one and pulled his arms up next to him, making to get up. He bent his elbows in the same position he would to push himself off his stomach, but couldn't make his muscles apply force.

The paintings were askew and he was absolutely filthy. He needed to get up. The paintings hadn't been fixed in three weeks. They were bound to be horrendously distorted by the sway of gravity. They needed to be fixed. They needed to be fixed now.

Now.

Kid forced himself upward, but did not open his eyes. He pushed himself up off the couch in a rather ungraceful manner. He held himself up with his arms, trying to balance as he placed his feet on the floor and brought himself into a standing position. He wrapped his fingers around the wooden arm of the couch and felt for the end table he knew was right next to it. When he for some frustrating reason couldn't find it, though, he forced his eyes open a crack.

His hand had been nowhere near it.

He forced his eyes open further, rubbing them with his fingertips in an attempt to keep them that way. He blinked, pulling his eyelids as far apart as they could go upon each opening. His head ached and swam momentarily, but his mind soon caught its balance again as did his knees which had briefly threatened to buckle.

"I figured you were going to sleep," he heard Liz say. He looked up to see her in the doorway.

He blinked tiredly for a second before speaking. "Mmmthe... paintings," he said, gesturing toward the hallway loosely and running his fingers through his hair. It felt so disgusting and greasy. "And my clothes... and... shit."

"You_ would_ care more about straightening paintings than your own health," Liz sighed.

"I think I'm 'unna just... go shower first," he mumbled taking a few slow steps forward.

"Well, me 'n' Patty are making dinner. I mean, it's just macaroni and cheese. It's not anything fancy, but..." she paused, looking at him a bit worriedly. "Well, it's going to be done soon if you wanna wait."

"I don't really want to eat like this," he said, itching his forehead. He felt oils come off on his nails. He really needed to wash his face.

"Alright," she said as she combed her hair with her fingers. "Whatever you want, man."

Kid nodded and moved closer to the doorway. As he moved around her and made his way into the hallway, she didn't take her eyes off him.

* * *

><p>Water slipped over him, twisting over his skin and giving it warmth. He stood with his eyes closed and simply let it flow over his body. It felt wonderful. It would be considered a fairly cool shower to most everyone, but to him it was perfect. It felt like life to him, felt correct. It was the most comfortable he'd felt in weeks.<p>

He hated that they lived in the desert sometimes. He'd rather live somewhere colder. He wondered very often why of all places on Earth, his father had chosen this place. It was always too hot. Around forty or fifty degrees was the best temperature in his opinion. Heat was uncomfortable for him with his body temperature, especially the extreme heat of the Nevada desert. It was something that no matter how used to it he got, he'd never like it. He could bare it, though. But, only because he was technically a god.

Liz and Patty were rather offended the first few times he'd snapped at them for touching him, specifically for Patty trying to hug him. They'd figured it was because he thought they were dirty, because he saw them as less than himself, because they were street girls. That had never been the case.

There was still a hollow ache in his stomach, though he did not feel quite as thirsty. Mostly, though, this was because he'd been unconsciously drinking the water as it poured from the shower head.

He pulled his hair back with his fingers, thickening with white lather, and almost viciously scrubbed his scalp. He had never in his life gone this long without bathing. He was absolutely disgusted with the thin coating of grease that encased his skin. He was unable to focus on even straightening the paintings without first fixing it.

Of course, he shouldn't _have _to feel this way. If he'd just been left inside that book the entire time rather than frequently being ripped from it's pages by that deranged pet of Noah's, his body wouldn't have changed any. He wouldn't be so hungry or tired. He wouldn't feel like this.

He still had yet to really figure out just why he'd hated him so much. He was jealous of something, though he didn't know what. He probably would never know. It wasn't that important, he figured. There were other drastically more crucial details swarming his mind.

All that had happened in the book, all that Noah had wanted, his own sanity; all off it was begging for contemplation, among other things.

He could find no motivation behind Noah's actions. He simply wanted things for the sake of having them. There was nothing deeper, nothing more. He confused him. There was no reason behind his actions. It was unnecessary. It was irrational. Insanity.

Greed. That's all it was, was greed. Most people, though, had some intention for the things they collected. He just wanted, endlessly. More and more and more. He was a collector, a hoarder. His desire was simply to cull the most valuable things in the world. He was covetous for no reason at all other than to covet.

Kid supposed, eventually, that not everything had to have a reason. There should be order, though. There should be ways to sort everything. If there was no reason, there was only insanity. Or course, insanity usually has a reason behind it, does it not? Isn't there always a reason someone succumbs to madness?

He didn't know how to explain his thoughts in human language. He didn't even know quite how to explain them to himself. There were things he was discovering lately that he was incapable of conveying to anyone. He would never be able to tell a single person what he knew.

This was where he felt alienated, like he was something other than a human. This, of course, was something he was well aware of anyway. However, it was not something that normally effected his life so directly. He wanted to explain these things, wanted to talk to Liz an Patty about them, wanted to tell his partners, tell his friends, his dearest friends.

He still, though, with all of what he knew, could not truly know the motivations behind Noah's incessant cultivation. Although he also at the same time was only now becoming aware of the extent of his own obsessions.

He slipped his hands through his soaking hair as he let the water drag the lather from his hair, his fingers feeling the soap and waiting for it all to be rinsed out. He screwed up his face and gritted his teeth unintentionally. The empty ache he felt from hunger suddenly twisted into something else, something much more sinister that completely stole his appetite.

He breathed deeply and tried to exhale the feeling. However, his breath got caught in his tightly clenched teeth.

His need to keep all in order... He couldn't tell if it was insanity. Perhaps, when taken to the extent as he had within the book it could be considered so. Perhaps those thinkings and desires were mad. Of course, he had thought of them as well while in his right state of mind. He'd thought of it before, that just completely reducing the world to nothing would solve everything. He'd never, though, thought about truly carrying out such a feat until he'd drown in madness.

He could still feel that wavelength in his mind. He'd never forget it. He'd never forget the feeling of that substance on his face. It had been cold, enough so to burn his skin, but still felt strangely comfortable. It wiped out most all thought, let him drift into a fearless and reasonless state. It distorted true thinking, it rung in his ears, but it was so high pitched he could not truly hear it. Liquid radio static.

When the feeling of the water rushing over him and the darkness behind his eyelids became far too apparent, he winced. It did not couple well with his hatred towards the feeling.

Why had he thought that was a good feeling? Why had he let that take over him? Why had it been comforting?

There were times, he knew, where he did not want to think. There were always times he wished he could forget. He wished for it constantly. Now, though, he wasn't sure if that was what he truly wanted.

He wanted order. How could that order be obtained with madness? It didn't make sense. He should never go back down that road again. He should never let himself think like that again. Order. All he wanted was order. Why did he want it so badly, though?

Irrational rationality.

Insanity.

That blackness he'd experienced, it was like death. That was why he found it comfortable, because it was his. Death was his domain. It was infinite symmetry. It was something that all had to experience at some point. All fell victim to this order. It looked so similar, though, to madness and to the blackness behind his eyes.

He remembered stories his father once had told him about the reaper that came before him. He'd been the Death God during the GrecoRoman era. His name had been Thanatos. He had had a twin brother named Hypnos, who was a god of sleep.

Sleep was so very similar to death. It outwardly appeared nearly the same and was also an order all had to follow at some point, or else they'd fall into insanity.

Order. Life. Death. Sleep. Sanity.

There was too much to think about. His mind branched off into a million different directions, grabbing different thoughts that begged like so many spoiled children for him to answer each of their questions first.

He needed to sleep.

He ran his fingers over his hair. It still felt greasy. He didn't know if this was because there was still shampoo in it, or because it was still dirty. He hoped that it wasn't still dirty. He'd washed it six times already. He took in a deep breath, trying to alleviate the sick feelings inside his ribcage.

He still had to fix the paintings and fold the toilet paper. There were also the bookshelves in the library he hadn't fixed in a while. Then of course there was the contents of the kitchen Liz and Patty were sure to have messed up.

_"Shut up" _he hissed. _"Just shut up_"

His teeth were tight as the words seethed through them. But, of course, there were so many things that needed to be fixed. There were so many rugs that needed to be straightened, so much that needed to be dusted.

_"Shut up. You're so stupid. You don't need to do that,"_ he whispered. He tugged his hair, pulling it until the roots stung.

It didn't help. He leaned forward so that his forehead was touching the porcelain tiles. They, like the water, felt perfect against his skin, like another being, like someone just like him.

But there wouldn't ever be someone like him. He was the one who would have to take over for his father. He was the one who would have to keep order. It was not madness that made him like this. He did need to do it. Perhaps it was simply that he had nothing else, yet, to impose order upon. All he had was this house.

His father had the world.

He would have it someday too.

There was a loud knocking on the door suddenly that made him jump. He pulled away from the wall, standing alert and listening.

"Hey, Kid, you've been in there for almost an hour," she called, half of her voice getting lost on its way through the door. "Don'cha think you aughta get out now?"

* * *

><p>They knocked, something they often were not so courteous to do, and allowed him to first grant them permission before entering his bedroom. When he did, though, they walked in with their normal air of relaxedness and fell into the couch cushions on either side of him. With the three of them sitting together, there was practically no room left on the small love seat.<p>

"Jeez," Liz said as she placed a tray on the end table beside the love seat. "We were starting to think you'd died in there."

"M'sorry." He rubbed his eyes roughly with his fingertips, stretching his now quite dry skin over his cheekbones. "I still don't feel clean, though."

"Your hair is like straw," she commented, running her fingers over a bit of his bangs. She was careful, though, not to invade his space too much and pulled away quickly. "Seriously, did'ja wash it enough?"

Kid responded silently, shaking his head and shrugging lightly. He itched his forehead, his skin tight and laced with an odd prickling feeling as he moved the muscles in his face.

Both Liz and Patty had odd looks on their faces. They appeared conflicted, with genuinely pleased smiles, but worried eyes. They were soft looking, though, and welcoming. Liz gripped him by the shoulder tightly, comfortingly.

He allowed himself to smile slightly. However, the expression would not stick as the uneven weight began to become more apparent. He rolled his free shoulder uncomfortably, stiffening it and the muscles in his neck. His shoulder blades grinded backwards with forcibly tightened muscles. He opened his mouth to solicit change, but was obliged before the words left his tongue.

Patty gripped his other shoulder, restoring his balance, and the two leaned back into the couch with him. Kid sighed thankfully.

"This is yours, by the way," Liz said when he was relaxed again. She reached over to the end table, not releasing her grip on his shoulder, and picked up a bowl off the tray. She handed it to him, his hands taking it carefully. The porcelain was warm and smooth cupped in his fingers.

"Oh," he said in surprise. "I didn't know you meant _real_ macaroni and cheese. I just sort of thought..."

"What? That I dunno how to cook?" Liz smirked. "You insult me," she said sarcastically, sighing dramatically and placing a hand on her chest.

"Well, you've never really cooked before, so..." he explained.

"Well, we weren't just gonna eat pizza for the whole time you were gone!" Patty said, smiling widely.

"I know, I know," Kid defended. "I wouldn't expect you to."

He felt both of their hands slip from his shoulders, though Patty's went first, as they shifted on the couch, curling up into the corners and leaning against the arms.

Kid stared down into the bowl that was clutched in his lap, at the elbows glued together with melted cheese and the thick crust of seasonings on the top layer of macaroni. It wasn't until now that there was food directly in front of him that he realized the extent of how hungry he was. The entirety of his ribcage felt empty and furious.

He stabbed the macaroni without a second thought, jamming as much onto the fork as possible, and shoved it into his mouth. He ate as fast as he could, with no regard to consistency or proper mannerisms, in a very un-Death-the Kid-like way.

"I fell weird about eating in front of you," he said, pausing with his fork full of macaroni.

"Oh, just eat," Liz told him. She kicked his thigh lightly. "We already ate anyway."

"Yeah, before Liz freaks out again," Patty snickered.

Liz rolled her eyes, looking only slightly irritated, but said nothing.

"Again?" Kid wondered as he continued eating. He mostly just wanted them to keep talking, but was still rather intrigued about when and why Liz had had a panic attack last. He could not recall one, or at least, could not recall a real one, that had happened recently.

"Mhmm," Patty nodded happily. Liz's eyes widened. "She was freakin' out the whole time you were gone."

"I was not," Liz interjected hastily. She leaned forward slightly towards her sister at the other end of the couch.

"Yes you were!" the younger girl said playfully. She reoriented herself so that her legs were crossed and so that she also was facing her sister. She grabbed her ankles and laughed deviously.

"Patty..." Liz pleaded, an embarrassed look on her face. Kid smirked amusedly. He missed their bickering, and it felt odd to have been missed in such a way. It wasn't as though he thought they didn't care, but he just had never thought about something like this happening. He felt important, strangely flawless. It made him feel absolutely elated from the inside out, and perfectly fulfilled. He felt perfect.

"No no! You totally were!" she said. She grabbed Kid's shoulder, rocking forward and leaning into him slightly before pushing herself back. "She totally was," she said to him. "Oh my God! We were learning 'bout chemistry an-"

"Patty!" the older girl snapped imploringly. Her eyes were wide, though her mouth was forced into a crude attempt at a smile.

"No! Lemme tell him!" Patty replied excitedly. She adjusted herself again so that she was facing Kid more. "Okay, so we been doin' chemistry and stuff lately and we're learnin' 'bout all kindsa bonding and shit, alright?"

Liz squirmed uncomfortably. Her face showed clearly how very much she did not want this story told.

"'Kay..." Kid urged, continuing to eat while listening intently.

"'Kay, so, there's this certain kinda bond called um..." she paused looking in all directions as though the name was written somewhere in Kid's bedroom. Meanwhile Liz had her face buried in the palms of her hands. "Um... Well, anyway. We were learning about this one bond thing that only works if it's symmetrical. And-"

"And it made me think of you and it made me miss you more, that's all," Liz interrupted suddenly. Her voice was a bit louder than necessary and there was something in the way she spoke that could be equated to bad acting.

"Nuh uh! That's not all!" Patty corrected. Kid's smirk widened, but he made sure to face his dish as he listened. "We hadda do a work sheet, kay? Where we hadda figger out if it was s'metrical 'er not and stuff and Liz couldn't do it a'cause-"

"Patty shut up!" she dictated in a desperate whispered scream.

"And she kept crying the whole time! And she couldn't do it at all!" Patty finished in disregard to her sister's wishes.

"I was not crying! That was not what happened!" Liz insisted. "I just... I don't know. It-I... I didn't know-" Liz's tongue and lips contorted confusedly as her mouth tried to force out words that were not yet even in her mind. "God, I hate both of you sometimes."

"Aww, I didn't know you cared so much," Kid said, snickering.

"Oh, hush," Liz said, shoving him lightly. She looked to be fighting a smile as well.

Kid sighed and reached over his partner to place his now empty dish on the end table. When he was seated properly again, he folded his knees into his chest and leaned back into the couch. Liz stared at him with eyes that were almost mournful for several seconds, her smile gone again. She bit her lip. Before he could think, though, Kid was surrounded in her arms and his face was being pressed into her shoulder.

Her body temperature wasn't quite as hard for him to endure as it usually was. He, in fact, minded very little. He did not pull away from her. He did not ask her to let go, especially since she seemed to have become upset. His arms, which were awkwardly tucked between his chest and hers, were moved carefully to hug her back. Though, he was hesitant and slow to put them into the correct position.

"I don't care if you don't like hugs. You're freaking getting one after all this crap," She said, her words obscured slightly by his shoulder.

"It's... It's... fine," he said when no other options for replies entered his mind.

"Seriously. You don't know how worried I was," she continued.

Kid mumbled something incoherent with his face now pressed too tightly into her shoulder for proper vocation. Liz continued none the less.

"I mean," she said. "You just fricken go and get your arm cut off and almost die, you put your arm _back on, _which, I'd still love to know how the hell you did that, and then you just get sucked into that stupid book before we can really tell if you're okay and then we don't see you for three weeks and-"

"Okay, I'm sorry for making you worry so much," Kid said laughingly after he finally managed to place his chin on top of her shoulder instead of in it.

"Don't apologize," she ordered.

She held onto him for some time before releasing him. He pulled away from her in the same shaky and unsure fashion with which he'd hugged her. As soon as he began to sit back into the couch, though, he was pulled in the other direction.

Patty's arms encircled him quickly and tightly. She squeezed him, his arms being pressed into his ribs and his face into her breasts. She squealed delightedly and he grunted in discomfort. This did not seem like a very loving hug. In fact, she seemed far more intent on strangling him than hugging him. He knew she'd missed him though. He still understood what she meant. Patty was not one for dramatic words, or really anything deeply intimate. Her sister also had likely said everything she was thinking as well. There was nothing more she needed to do.

When she finally let go and he pulled away from her, she was laughing and giggling madly. It was also evident on her face that Patty had more to tell him.

"Also," she started. "Since you were gone, we went on some missions by Killik and them and it was pretty bitchin'. And I kicked some people's asses in training."

Kid waited for her to continue.

"And also, oh my God, all the stuff that happened in the book when we were comin' to get you," she said excitedly.

"Oh, good lord," Liz sighed.

"Kay so- Wait," Patty stopped herself. "You were in the book. Did you have to go through all the chapters?" The younger girl had a horribly mischievous grin on her face.

Liz's eyes widened in thought for a moment before her face adopted her sister's smirk. "Yeah, Kid," she said. "Did you have to go through all the chapters and... experience any _changes_ from it? "

He eyed them both carefully and fairly confusedly for a moment before answering. The thought of the madness came back to him, of what he'd done under it's influence. He'd honestly rather not share that experience with them just yet. It made him sick to think of all the thoughts that had crossed his mind. "What exactly are you getting at?"

"Look, all we're asking is, 'Did anything happen to you during the first seven chapters of the book?'" Liz clarified, still smirking.

_The first seven chapters. _

"No," he said simply. "Nothing happened."

His two partners most certainly did not believe him. They glanced at each other with raised eyebrows.

"You're sure about that?" Liz pressed.

"Yes," he said irritably, too irritably.

"Liar," Patty said.

Kid crossed his arms over his chest and stared at his knees. His mouth was glued shut and his throat was tight, locking any words away to prevent them from escaping.

"Come on," Liz pried. That smirk was still on both her's and her sister's face. When his own face stayed sullen and concrete, they began giggling madly.

"What?" he asked confusedly.

At that their laughter burst like a bubble and the two were falling over themselves, tripping in amusement. Patty's forehead fell to his knee when her body was too occupied with trying to force her to breathe to hold her upright, and Liz's face was was pressed into the back of the couch as she gagged on the hilarity.

"What?" he asked again, more forcefully this time.

"I have no idea what you're laughing about," he said when they did not stop.

"Th-the," Liz started when her breath caught up with her. "The first chapter. We're asking about the first chapter."

Kid only gave them a more confused look.

"The lust chapter," she continued, impatience cutting her voice.

Still, his face did not change.

"Did you turn into a girl or what!" Patty blurted out, finally.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said simply.

"Oh, like fuck you don't," Patty smirked.

Kid made every effort to look away from them.

"How long did it take you to change back?" Liz snickered.

"How big were your tits!"

"Patty!"

"What?"

"We're not talking about this," Kid said, rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah we are," Patty pressed. "What'd you look like? Seriously I wanna know if you're hornier than Tsubaki. I mean, you're kind of a slut anyway, but-"

"Patty!" Liz scolded again.

"Wait what?" Kid asked.

"Well, I'm not gonna lie you're kind of a slut. I mean you're a nice slut, but-"

"No no not that. Well, yes that, but later," he cut her off. "What the hell does Tsubaki-"

"Oh! Oh my god!" Patty giggled. "Tsubaki was the last to change back, so she's the horniest!"

Kid looked at her for wide eyes for a moment. An awkward smile spread across his face. "I don't believe you," he said flatly.

"Well, it's a true story so you should," she said, leaning back into the couch with her arms crossed.

"So back to the matter at hand," Liz started. "What do you look like as a chick?"

"I said we're not talking about this," he said strictly as he pushed himself off the couch. The two girls suddenly looked alarmed, as well as apologetic, as he paced away from them.

"Hey, don't run away," Liz objected. "We can talk about something else."

"I'm not leaving you," he said reassuringly. "This is just pissing me off." He made his way over to his bed. "I'm still listening."

The light was dimmer on this end of the room, and so his eyes flickered and reflected softly as he fixed his sheets. He was careful, holding them delicately in his fingers and straightening them with focus unmatched. He waited for them to continue speaking, but the moment had been tugged to a point of tearing by his abruptness. Silence fell between them as he unblinkingly fixed his sheets which had seemed so important.

As he stared and neatened and no words were made, he contemplated the importance of such an act. He wondered why sheets of all things made him so frustrated. He wondered why inanimate, soulless, objects demanded to have order imposed on them. Why did he care so much?

He pulled his hands away from the mattress then and stepped back. He fidgeted with his fingers, the ones that normally had rings on them. The lack of silver suddenly became alarmingly obvious, and blatantly annoying. Why did it matter so much?

He twisted his hands together awkwardly, feeling over the empty spot roughly in an attempt to compensate for the void. It didn't help. He shouldn't be focusing on this. He shouldn't be. There were much more important things.

"Are you okay?" he heard Liz say eventually.

It shocked him to hear her say that and brought up a feeling inside of him that was both thanking and uneasy. His hands momentarily stopped moving and he stared at the wooden floor beneath his feet.

When he didn't respond, Liz stood and said, "Patty, you should go get more for him."

Patty hesitated for a moment before standing as well and taking the tray from the side table. This as well made him feel odd. Liz waited until her sister had left the room before walking over to him and sitting on the bed. The mattress dipped and the sheets crumpled under her weight.

"I'd just fixed that," Kid said, alarmed and the now disheveled sheets. _And it doesn't matter_, he reminded himself.

"I know," she said a bit harshly. "Now what's wrong. Something's bugging you."

He only stared at her as he fought with himself about what to say. There was a long silence between them, or at least there was for Liz. Kid's mind was screaming and swarming with thoughts. He had no idea what to say to her. He didn't know if he should tell her just yet about the book and about the madness. He didn't know if he was capable or if he really wanted to. He didn't know anything at the moment it seemed. Then he thought of something.

"We should go back to where we found brew," he said. Liz's eyes widened astonishedly.

"What?" she asked carefully, his statement sounding ludicrous.

"We need to go back to the field," he explained by not elaborating in the least.

"Why?" she asked slowly, her lips taking the shape of the word several seconds before she was able to force out the sound.

"There's something I need to do there," he said. "It's very important."

"Um, alright..." She still eyed him oddly.

"I'd like to go as soon as possible," he continued. He ran a hand through his damp hair. His stripes were dyed silver with the water from his shower. "Actually..."

He paused and looked at the ground, wetting his chapped lips in thought. Then he walked away from her without finishing his sentence. He paced over tho his closet and threw open the doors. He pulled a dress shirt from within and draped it over his arm. As he began to pull out a suit jacket as well, Liz squirmed in anticipation.

"'Actually...?'" she urged him to continue.

"Hm?" He turned with a hanger in his grip, an alert look on his face.

"What were you saying?" she pressed.

"Oh," he said, pausing to drape the suit jacket over his arm. "I'd like to go tonight."

"What!" she shrieked in alarm. "Kid, you've only been home for like, two hours."

"Yes, and I'd like to get going as soon as possible," he repeated himself calmly. It was becoming more and more important to him the loner he thought about it that he get back to the magnetic field. "I need to do some research."

"And you can't wait until, maybe tomorrow to do this?" she asked.

He stopped his motions again, this time with neatly folded pants hanging from his fingers on a hanger. He flexed his fingers oddly, making sure to rub them all against to middle ones in the absence of his rings. He then draped the pants over his arm and proceeded to then lay all the clothes he picked on the bed next to his partner.

As he paced over to his dresser he answered her with a slightly confused sounding, "You... You don't understand."

Liz sighed through her nose. "I really think you should at least wait until tomorrow."

"No," he said. "Look, I... I really really need to do this now. You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"Kid..." she tried.

"No," he insisted. "Listen," he began, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his dresser drawer as he began to pace. "There's just some things I need to know. I can probably get back here before ten o'clock tomorrow if I get going now. It's not a big deal."

"If it's not a big deal," Liz persuaded, "Then you can wait."

"No, I can't," he said firmly as he continued to walk back and forth in front of her. "I just have some things I need to take care of. You wouldn't understand."

"Why wouldn't I?" she asked. At that moment, the door clicked opened and Patty quietly slipped back in with the tray.

"It's got to do with being a reaper," he explained.

"Ah. Of course," she huffed. "And I'm too stupid to get it."

"That's not what I'm saying," he told her.

"Yes. Yes you are," she insisted.

"No," he said again. "I just don't know how to explain it in a way you'd understand."

"So I'm stupid," she concluded.

"No, that's not what I'm saying," he restated more forcefully, a bit through his teeth.

"What's he going on about now?" Patty whispered to her sister as she climbed onto the bed and lay next to her.

"He's saying I'm stupid," Liz reiterated.

"No. I am not, Liz," Kid defended. His pacing was becoming more frantic. "I just have no idea how to explain it to you."

"Because I wouldn't understand," she concluded dully.

"No, because I don't even know how to explain it to myself!" he said with a tightened jaw. "I really need to go back to the field, Liz. Really. I can't wait until tomorrow."

Both girls were quiet for a moment while his pacing slowly became manic. "I have to go there," he said again. "I have to figure some things out. I don't know what to do otherwise."'

"What's at the field?" Patty asked.

"Just..." he paused. "Something that'll answer some questions I have."

The two just watched him worriedly as he walked so panickedly before them.

"You can do that tomorrow," Liz urged.

"There's no point in waiting. There's nothing I have to do," he explained.

"Yes, of course. Nothing to do," Liz said sarcastically. "You don't have to tell your father who was freaking out about you that you're okay. You don't have to sleep. You don't have anything to do."

"I'm not tired," he said. "And I don't like visiting my dad this late at night."

"Right," she rolled her eyes. "That's why you're pacing."

"What does that have to do with anything?" he said irritably.

"You always freak out in exactly this way when you're tired," she explained. "If you weren't tired, you'd be on the floor."

"That's not true," he said simply. "I don't feel like sleeping right now. I need to go to the field." He twisted his hands around his middle fingers. He needed to just put his rings back on.

"Tomorrow," she continued. "I think you need to sleep right now."

Kid finally stopped pacing and ripped open his dresser drawer to get a pair of socks, which he promptly added to the pile on his bed. He then opened another drawer and dug through it briefly before groaning. "Where are my suspenders?" he said irately.

"You left them in the bathroom," Liz sighed.

As soon as the words left her mouth, Kid was headed toward the door, which he promptly wrenched open and fled through. Once he'd crossed the hall to his bathroom and retrieved them, he came back and threw them on the bed with the rest of his clothes.

Liz sat on the edge of his bed with her head in the palm of her hand. Patty looked oddly contemplative sitting next to her. Kid continued to dig through his dresser.

"Kid, I don't really think that now is the time for this sort of thing," Liz said tiredly.

"Now is probably the best time, actually," he responded.

"Tomorrow," she pushed. "_Tomorrow_."

"Will you excuse me so that I can get dressed?" he said politely.

"No," Liz said quickly, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Sit. Here. Now." She pointed to the space on the bed on her other side.

"I don't have time," he claimed through his teeth.

"Yes you do," she said. "Now calm your shit and come over here."

Kid crossed his arms and sighed as he walked over to the bed. He stared at her and waited impatiently for her to say whatever she had to say so that he could finish getting ready.

"I'm not your mother, Kid," she said exasperatedly. "But, seriously, just wait until tomorrow morning. I highly doubt it's as crucial as you're making it out to be."

Kid's eyes rolled to the side and he glared to the wall for a moment with his doubled irises. When they rolled back, they were slightly more composed, but only slightly.

"Just go to bed so you can think a little less neurotically," she continued. "Seriously."

"I'm not going to be able to sleep until I've done this," he said, forcing himself to sound calm. He couldn't even imagine himself closing his eyes at the moment. His exhaustion was entirely gone. He couldn't feel it anymore at all. Perhaps he'd become numb. "I'm not tired."

"Really? 'Cause you look like you're gonna pass out in a few seconds," Patty said with a bored glare in her eyes and her words muffled by her hand being pressed into her cheek.

"Think about what you're doing for a second," Liz said. "You over-think absolutely everything in exactly the wrong ways all the time."

It was becoming alarming to him to hear her say all these things about him. He never really thought people were actually that observant of others' actions. He never thought he'd hear such a thing. He never thought they payed that much attention. Then again, his soul wavelength was fired through them continuously on ever mission. Resonance was something they did commonly. It was only natural they'd know these things. Of course, though, no one ever really thinks that anyone notices anything accept their flaws. Reapers were no exception.

He let a breath out through his nose in an attempt to release the tension building in his limbs and mind. It did little to help, as did finally deciding to sit next to his two partners. On Liz's left. He was not in the middle.

"Patty, could you-"

"Uh huh," she agreed. He didn't need to finish. She crawled over to sit on his other side to fix his symmetry.

As he sat on the bed, though, he could easily see his reflection in the mirrors that covered the entire western wall. His eyes, he supposed, did look a bit haggard, with bruises brought on by fatigue defining them. He tried to ignore his stripes and looked down as soon as possible, rubbing his eyes. He did not like to dwell on his reflection for long.

"Okay, now what the hell happened in that stupid book?" Liz asked much more calmly.

Kid looked at her suspiciously out of the corner of his eye.

"BlackStar told us some serious shit happened," Patty explained. "But he wouldn't tell us nothin' else 'cause he said you'd be pissed if he did."

Normally, he'd be surprised that BlackStar of all people would be so considerate, but he for some reason wasn't in this situation. He only sighed and rubbed his eyes again. He didn't speak, though. He wasn't sure he was able to.

The two sisters waited patiently as he stared so intently at his neatly folded hands. He studied his fingers, coated in milky skin and missing their rings. He kept twisting them uncomfortably as he couldn't just convince himself that his rings were not on. He kept thinking that they were there. He kept thinking he should feel them.

"I don't know," he said finally.

He felt Patty wrap her arms around him momentarily, squeezing him tightly before letting go. She didn't crush him this time. She was trying to help, trying to comfort him. The Kid was not one to talk about these things easily, hence his neurosis.

He clutched his fingers.

"Just, some things," he said. "I did some stupid things and I don't know."

He was glad they were listening. He knew that with his constant panic attacks it could be hard to take him seriously in situations like these. He took in another deep breath.

"I just have no idea what I've been doing with my life," he said. "I'm probably an even worse reaper than I thought I was."

"Well that's a relief," Liz said. Kid turned his head and eyed her warily. "Or, well, I mean, it's not a good thing that you're having identity issues but well, I thought they did something to you and you were gonna have to go to counseling again."

"BlackStar said there was a big blobby thing that turned your brain to mush," Patty said, wanting to know more.

"I thought you said he didn't say anything," Kid commented.

"Well, that was the only other thing he told us," she explained. "He didn't say nothin' else, though, or really give us any details."

Kid nodded and prepared himself to speak with another breath. "It was a uh..." he paused, trying to think of how to phrase it. "A being that regulates power, and it sort of brings insanity and I sort of realized how nonsensical symmetry is."

Both of their eyes widened a they stared at him in astonishment.

"I mean, I still can't really get over the whole um..." he hesitated. "The whole... OCD thing." He winced, as he'd never admitted out loud he had this problem. Now that he had, though, it seemed very logical and real. "But, what I've been doing, with the symmetry; the world isn't meant to be like that. There sort of needs to be disorder in order to have order, I think."

"Well, yeah, things aren't supposed to be perfect," Patty added.

"I know. I get that now." He closed his eyes. "There's some other stuff too, though, that I'm not quite as sure of it. That's why I need to go to the field. There's something there I need to do and it's going to kill me if I have to wait any longer."

"Well, I'm still gonna say you should wait until tomorrow," Liz said. "But, at least you figured out all this stuff before you actually became the Grim Reaper. Hell, if you hadn't, the world would have seas of disinfectant instead of water."

The two giggled lightly, trying to make his mood less somber. Kid smiled a tiny bit, but his eyes still looked dazed. Liz wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pressed him to her gently. He went with it, unfazed like a rag doll with distant eyes, until she let go.

"You know what to do now, though, right? Or at least sort of," she concluded for him. "So things'll get better. Me 'n' Patty had the same issue, remember? When we first came here?"

"Yes," he said. "I remember."

"Right," she said.

Kid blinked tiredly, his eyes closing for a long time before he opened them again.

"Now go to bed," she said sternly. "You'll probably feel better in the morning."

This time, he did not object and simply nodded. His eyes would not stay open anymore, as his numbness had subsided. He closed them easily and began to adjust himself as the two girls removed themselves from his bed. He shut off the light as they left and fell into his mattress immediately after. As the door clicked shut, he pulled his previously neatened covers over himself. They smelled strongly of soap and his house as he pressed his face into them.

With all of his thoughts now finally released, there was nothing left to swim in his mind. There was nothing to keep him from sleeping, and he finally trusted the blackness behind his eyelids. He fell into it with ease, the clothes he'd picked out still laying on his bed and the paintings still crooked. He didn't care, though.

He slept until noon.

* * *

><p><em>AN: It's OVER 9000!_

_Why was that so long! AUGH! I swear, I just kept looking at the word count and thinking "but it's not even half done!" So yeah. This is the longest thing I've ever written, with a grand total of 9300 words. Twenty-Four pages. Yep. Probably shoulda broken that up into two chapters... _

_..._

_I'm going to bed... _


	12. Finding Prt 1: Pink Elephants on Parade

_A/N: **EDIT: I'm fixing and reposting this. It is different from the first time I posted it now. Quite Different. There's a whole new part in it and most of the typos have been fixed, and goddamn were there a lot of them o.e**_

_I don't own SoulEater_

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><p>She watched them all from their little crevice, this little ally, their hiding place coated in garbage and street rats and cockroaches and sewer rats and the flitting little flying rats all chubby and covered in feathers. She watched them as they walked and drove and rushed like dirty sewer water down the tunnel. Everyone had somewhere to go. All of them were more important than everyone else. Everyone's problems mattered more than everyone else's. Everyone's job was more vital than all the others.<p>

They were all multitasking all the time, she knew. They were always talking on their cell phones, talking fast fast fast so she couldn't understand them, and drinking their coffee and checking stocks on their phones and buying and selling and talking and walking fast. They were the ones she watched, the ones that were frantic and speeding by in the big crowd. They were the one's she wanted, the big, fat, pink ones in suits all high and mighty.

And the pink elephants were on parade.

Like a circus, this city, she knew. She'd never been to a circus, but she knew just what they were full of. Patty knew very well that circuses were full of clowns and contortionists and drama and showy clothes and lights and lions and big, fat elephants and pigs. The pink elephants may as well be oversized pigs, only uglier with big noses looking for rewards, for peanuts, for money money money. Their fingers were too fat to do anything besides buy and sell and buy and sell and buy and sell and sell and sell. The stupid piggies just needed something else to take the money with.

They were pigs, big, fat, pigs ripe for slaughter. But they were bigger than normal pigs, big as elephants. They were just big pink elephants in suits.

And the pink elephants were on parade in their shiny dress shoes and fancy costumes, walking down the street in some big show they all thought they were the star of.

Pink elephants on parade, here they come. They're here and there, pink elephants everywhere.

Elephants were good to eat, would feed her and her sister for days and days and days. They were full of money inside, she knew, full of green sheets with tens and twenties and fifties and hundreds, hundreds, hundreds! Hunting big pink elephants, that's what they were doing today. Hunt the big pink elephants.

'Cause the pink elephants were on parade!

The disgusting elephants, filthy and revolting. She could stand the sight of worms, of course, as well as germs, but big fat pink pachyderms were really too much to her. All the same, she loved the parade, because she knew about all the money they had. Though they really were nauseating things...

She just wanted to know when. When? When? When? It was friday, after six. That was when the pink elephants came out. They were there, right there, walking right in front of them. Couldn't they do it now, now, now? She was practically jumping out of her pretty, creamy, crawling skin. She squirmed and danced little steps back and forth as she clung to the brick wall of the alley, all grubby and rough under her skinny little fingers.

"Mmm..." she groaned in frustration. "That one, sis? That one?"

She pointed at one of the elephants, a pretty fat one with thumbs crawling over the buttons of his phone like feeding maggots. His eyes wouldn't look up. They were stuck to the screen just like glue. He was so distracted, just watching his phone like it was his precious little baby. He wasn't gonna look up. He wasn't gonna see them. It'd be so easy! He was a stupid, weak elephant!

"No," Liz said, leaning nonchalantly just behind her on the wall, her long, straight, dark strawberry-blonde hair tied up loosely behind her head. "Do you see what he's wearing or how dirty his hair is? He's trash. He's not even worth it."

Now that she looked at him, she knew her sister was right. He was fat like an elephant, but dirty like a pig. He wouldn't have anything on him. He was just not smart enough to know you don't stand there and text around here. Maybe he was tourist. If that was the case, though...

Maybe he was carrying lots of money to buy useless shit. He'd buy lots of dumb "I heart NY" shirts and little plastic statues of liberty, maybe a Yankee mug if he was a baseball fan, and some dumb hat that'd make his fat head look fatter that he'd never wear again. Dumb, dumb tourists, waisting their money on useless useless shit like that while they sat here and wondered if they'd have something to eat. Dumb, fat, stupid, piggy, tourists that carried all their money in their pockets and were too stupid to know not to just stand there texting for ten minutes.

Her sister hated tourists. She always told her she did. She hate hate hated them with all her being, almost as much as she hated the dirty pink elephants and the contortionists. She hated the one's that complained everyone walked too fast and yelled to their husbands and wives and kids and argued about where to go with their maps and walked around with water bottles and backpacks full of useless shit.

She hated the one's that complained about "yankees" the most, though, she always told her. The word annoyed the shit out of her, but only when they weren't talking about baseball. No, actually, when they talked about baseball too. She hated baseball...

But this guy, anyway, with his chubby, flitting thumbs, was probably not a tourist. Tourists usually dressed all stupid with backpacks and water bottles. He was done texting now, though, and had walked on, swallowed up by the crowd and never to be seen again.

Patty was not discouraged, though, for the pink elephants were still on parade, still marching down the street with heavy, clomping, fat feet in shined up leather shoes.

Near by, a band had started playing, waiting for money, for stupid fat tourists to feel bad for them or think their fancy shiny saxophone made pretty enough noise for them to deserve money. Oh, this truly was a circus with loud, lively, desparate music. A circus, a circus, with big pink elephants.

She danced and danced in this big carnival on the balls of her feet and waited and waited in crawling, dirty, beautiful skin. She waited for her sister, she was so smart and tactile, to pick out the perfect elephant. She was so good at picking them, always knew which was best. She always listened to her sister, Patty did, always always always. Her sister always knew what was best. She was always so smart and never afraid and strong and brave. But she knew when to run. She was just good like that. She knew just when to run.

But she wished she'd make up her mind. She wished she pick somebody out already. A new pin was shoved into her side every minute she stared out at the parade. She squirmed and bounced and scraped her nails on the bricks with wide, wide, eyes as blue and as gleaming as precious sapphires.

How much longer would it be until she made her decision! She prayed it was soon. They hadn't had breakfast yet today and she was rather starving. Of course, though, nothing would be more satisfying than getting the money. She didn't know if Liz liked it this much, but Patty thought it was the greatest feeling, full of energy and vigor and wonderful, wonderful adrenaline. She love love loved the adrenaline.

She wanted her sis to tell her, to tell her now, to change into a gun, wanted to feel her body fall away and turn into pure power. She wanted to feel her sister's soul and the fear of whomever they were getting money from. She wanted to see his eyes, all glittering and oozing and full of surprise, just like a party.

Oh when! When would she say it was okay?

They were right there! The pink elephants were marching right in front of them!

Come on!

"That one?" she asked. "Please?" Her perfect, starved body was practically shaking from the agony of waiting.

"Just wait a sec, Patty," she said, a cigarette held tight in her teeth, it's smoke swimming around her head like a poisonous halo. "Not just yet."

She groaned again, leaning her pretty blonde head against the hard, scab-colored, bricks. Her eyes were wide and wild, forced open by the pressure of excitement. The parade, the parade. It marched on before her eyes and she worried it might finish soon. The elephants, the elephants, the dirty pink elephants in their pretty pretty costumes...

"When?" she pried. "When? When? When?"

"When someone good comes along," she said through her tightly clenched teeth, trying to quiet her bubbling, boiling pot of water of a sister. "Just hold on a sec. I think I see someone good coming."

She gasped, an airy, rushing noise of avid enthusiasm as her mouth spread into a wide, manic smile that was only surpassed by the rising moon. Her fingers twitched against the scabby bricks and her toes wriggled in her rotting sneakers.

"Who, sis?" she whispered ardently. "Who? Who? Who?"

There was a moment where her sister didn't answer, a long long moment of so many needles in her sides. Then her sister grabbed her hand and pulled her back, further into the dark, into the ally, under a cloak of shadows to hide her.

"Him..." she whispered into her ear, her hands tight and guiding on her shoulders and her breath tickling her neck. She pointed a long, thin finger out just enough so Patty could see, her nail overgrown and coated in chipping pink nail polish.

She lined her big blue eyes up to where she was pointing, and her smile only widened. Yes. Yes. Sure. Sure. Whoever he was, it didn't matter. He's coming close, right in front of them, short, tiny, and naive. Yes. Yes. Yes.

A little baby elephant, all pale and creamy white.

Yeah. Sure. He'll do. Whatever.

She was jumping again, her heart fluttering like the little, stupid, flying rats.

"Okay," her sister said, and Patty froze and sucked in her skinny, starving, stomach to keep from squealing too loudly. "Transform."

And she did, with no hesitation and the utmost of elation, let her body fall away from her a dissolve into bright pink light. She was weightless for a moment, nothing holding her, nothing but energy and a blurred, spastic soul. She remembered the first time she'd transformed and how much the weightlessness scared her. Now, though, it was just more adrenaline. She let herself fall into her sister's grip and allowed her body to take the only other form it had.

A shiny silver pistol with her wild, deadly eyes printed right on the barrel sat neatly in her sister's palm. Then Liz did all she needed to do, her pretty brains taking over the mission and doing everything for them. She plucked that little baby elephant right out of the crowd, right out of the parade, right off the stage where he and everyone else was the star. She picked it out just for her, all dressed up in a fancy black suit.

Patty saw what she could from Liz's grip, watching as her free hand wrapped itself around this little baby's arm. She pulled him away without anyone seeing and dragged him, a hand over his mouth to keep him from squealing, into the filthy, writhing ally where the cockroaches waltzed and the rats had wings.

Liz pressed her barrel into his back, and so all she could see was the pristine black fabric of his suit. She could feel he was cold, more so than normal, but she didn't fret on it. He was rich. She knew it. He was rich rich rich.

Once Liz had twisted him around and slammed against that scabby, red, wall, she was pressed up against his cold, milky throat. She couldn't keep herself from laughing, a squeaking, rising laugh, from high in her throat. It bubbled and sloshed right from her reflection as it appeared on her barrel.

"Just give me what you have," Liz said with just the right amount of force. She didn't hesitate or flit around with death threats, her sister didn't. She just wanted what she wanted and did what she needed to to get it.

"I don't have anything," said the baby elephant. Her laughter only escalated into a screaming, choking taunting thing. He was so funny. He thinks that Patty's big sister will believe that. He thinks they'll leave him alone now! He thinks they'll walk away!

"Look, I don't wanna have to hurt you, kid," her sister said. "I just want whatever you've got."

"I don't have anything on me," he said again, like the funny, funny boy he was. She laughed at him, higher and higher. The stupid stupid baby elephant, the little tiny piglet with flawless, spotless skin like cold china, he thinks he's so funny. So Patty laughed at him.

"Take everything out of your pockets," her big sister said firmly.

"Just go home," he said. "I don't have anything. Go home."

Go home? Go _home_? Oh he was such a funny boy, absolutely hilarious! Her high giggling boiling voice bubbled over and and forced the lid off the pot, erupting into fits that would've sent her to the floor were she standing. He wanted them to go home! HA!

"Uh huh," said her sister. "Show me what you have."

"I haven't got a thing on me," he insisted. "Just go home."

Patty howled and howled and her sister began to smirk just as amusedly. Her big sis thought it was funny too. He must be real hysterical to make her sister laugh. He was so so so funny funny funny, this little elephant.

"Go home, huh?" she said. "Yeah, yeah, we will." She laughed lightly from deeper in her throat, little puffs of smoke floating from her mouth and into his pale, porcelain face. "Just quit lying and give me what you've got first."

"Leave me alone and go home," he said darkly. Oh! Oh! He was trying to be threatening now! Oh! This was just too too much! She shrieked and choked on her cackling squeals. Oh! Isn't he just the funniest little elephant in the parade!

"Yeah okay," said Liz. "Now what's in your pockets that you gotta get all bitchy about hiding?"

"I don't carry anything with me," he spat through gritted teeth. Oh the stupid stupid little elephant. Weren't elephants supposed to be smart? Oh he was a dumb one, this little baby elephant all white and black. Patty just laughed louder and louder and louder. He didn't even know how funny he was! He didn't even understand how hard he was making it for her to breathe! Oh the funny funny elephant, all decked out in his pretty black suit! He was what made her day great! He was what put her in the best of moods.

"Would you cut the shit and just give me what you have, ya little bitch?" her sister growled back. This little thing didn't know Patty's big sister didn't take jokes well. He didn't know she was a serious girl who liked serious guys. He wasn't gonna charm her with his funny funny humor.

Patty just screeched and giggled as her mirth boiled down her sides in bubbling, bursting, beads. This funny little baby elephant dressed in his silly silly suit and shiny black leather piggy hooves would be the death of her, if only because she would suffocate from laughing so hard.

Didn't he know who they were? Didn't he know what day it was? Didn't he know today was the day the pink elephants were on parade? Didn't he know who the parade was for? It was all for them. It was their smorgasbord, their buffet of money just waiting waiting waiting. He _had _to know. He couldn't be serious. He had to be joking. What a funny, funny elephant.

And then there was a gasp, a heavy hollow one from a painful force coming from her adored big sister. Patty stopped laughing and clattered onto the pavement. Before she heard even four quick little fleeting steps, her sister called to her and she knew what to do.

Before he could leave, her bodies shifted and she was a girl again with pretty, starving, crawling skin. Her fingers gripped his collar and pulled him back, spun him around like a dance partner, and pressed him back up against the wall of scabs where he belonged. She pressed her arm against his cold, scrawny chest to hold him there and held her other hand open and waiting until her sister filled the empty space.

Patty clutched the shimmering pistol in her hand and thrust it against the elephant's pretty little head. He was definitely the oddest little thing she'd ever seen, with golden eyes with two irises and black silky hair with three white stripes encircling the left half of his head. He was a pretty little elephant, oh yes. He was pretty pretty pretty.

His eyes were wide and shocked, staring at her with the utmost of surprise. She was about to laugh again, at the stupid gawking face he made, but then she didn't. He was surprised, yes, but there was something not quite right about it. He was merely shocked.

Not scared.

He was not scared.

There was nothing in those shiny golden eyes that depicted fear, nothing at all. Those eyes were full of wanting, of greed, of covetous desires. This was all wrong. This was wrong wrong wrong.

Patty's smile disappeared, replaced instead with a look wide eyed and serious.

"Give me what's in your pockets, little baby elephant," she said in a voice thick with burning ice. "Now."

"I haven't got anything," he said again, his weird, honey-colored eyes narrowing harshly. "Just go home."

"Uh huh."

She pulled the arm holding him to the wall back behind her and then thrust it forward and into his skinny stomach and wrinkled up his pretty pretty suit. He didn't gasp, though. He didn't even flinch.

This stupid fucking elephant was too stupid to feel pain.

She gripped his shoulder with a furious, grip, so tight she shook. Her dirty overgrown nails dug into his jacket, into his shirt, into his skin. Go home, huh? Go home, yeah? He wanted them to go _home. _Ha ha. He's so funny funny funny, with his funny fuckin' elephant face and stripy fuckin' hair. She laughed and laughed at him 'cause he was just so fuckin' funny.

Her laugh screeched and swirled and yelled, infuriated and oh so amused. Oh he was just so fucking funny.

"Patty, shut the fuck up," her sister hissed. "Don't give us away, dammit."

Oh right, right. she inhaled sharply, trying to take back all her laughs and drown any others. Oh right right right, she was louder when she wasn't a gun.

But he was just such a funny little thing.

Such. A Funny. Funny. Funny. Thing.

"I'll shoot you," she inhaled. "I'll fuckin' shoot you."

"I don't have anything," he said, his glare unwavering.

She could feel his heart beating, though. She could feel it just from his shoulder. Or maybe it was her's? She couldn't tell. It didn't matter. Maybe it was both, both of their hearts beating fiercely, shooting blood through their veins like bullets.

She could feel her blood pumping heavy in her throat, faster and faster. She was having a hard time not laughing too, 'cause this was just so fun and he was just so funny. Adrenaline, adrenaline. She breathed heavily, her smile unable to get any wider.

"We all know yer lyin'" she giggled.

"Right," he said, finally starting to wince. His eyes twitched and his mouth sneered. "I don't ever carry anything with me. Go. Home."

Go home! HA HA!

"Yeah? Yeah?" Patty said with her bright cerulean irises ringed perfectly by blaring white, little red branches stretching toward the blue. "Yeah?"

And then there was a loud, heavy, BANG that smashed into her head and her chest with the greatest amount of vigor. While the shot rang in her ears, all else was silent. Even her rushing, reeling, screaming mind went quiet just to enjoy the moment.

His liquidly, golden eyes rolled and his calm, still head bobbed to the side. He was gonna fall now. He was gonna go all limp like jelly, like pudding. His eyes were gonna close and he was gonna look like he was dead. He was gonna look dead dead dead.

And as his head lolled, she smiled and waited. She watched his dazed, confused eyes as they opened and shut and shifted and twisted. She waited and waited and slowly her smile started to recede.

He looked drunk, like he was s'pose to, but it wasn't s'pose to last this long. He shoulda passed out by now! He should be unconscious! Stupid fuckin' elephant didn't know how to pass out either?

And as her smiled fell deep into a frown, she pulled her arm back getting ready to beat his pretty pretty face in.

So her arm was no longer holding him back. Before she could fix this problem, his own fist was in her exposed, starving abdomen and she coughed and stumbled backward. And he ran, this time much faster than before, fast enough that he was gone before she could look up. She did, though, see a blur of black and the quick patter of piggy little feet.

And he was gone gone gone, with all of his money and guts still in tact.

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><p><em>AN: Yep. Kid got mugged. I'm going to be doing this. I know it's been done a thousand times before and it's probably not anything exciting to read, but I'm going to write the whole "this is how kid and the thompsons met" thing. Yeah... I'm gonna try and make it interesting, though, since it's a bit of a tired topic._

_Also, the "pink elephants on parade" thing is a song/scene from Dumbo, which I watched/listened to while writing this. Specifically, it is the scene where dumbo and the mouse guy are drunk and this for some reason sends them on a creepy as flying fuck acid trip. This scene also used to scare the crap out of me when I was little..._

_Part two of this story will be from Liz's POV (and much longer) and should be up relatively soon._

_Also, has anyone noticed how many times Ohkubo has added to how they met? Like... at first it was "oh they mugged me..." then it was "he saved them from the Italian mafia because it's America and people get hunted down by the mafia ALL the time..." and now, according to NOT! Kid was sent down- wait... Nevada isn't north of NYC... oops... ANYWAY! He was sent UP to NYC to kill them, and then decided not to... So... Imma try to straighten this shit out a bit_

_Reviews...?_


	13. Finding Prt 2: The Cockroach Waltz

_A/N: Part two!_

_I don't own SoulEater_

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><p>There was something about him, something off. He'd never looked afraid. He'd never looked distraught. He'd never even looked surprised. There was no shock in his eyes. There was nothing. Nothing but intrigue.<p>

He'd marveled at them with the utmost of joy in his face. When they'd transformed, Liz had figured he'd of realized his situation. She'd figured those disturbing golden eyes would've widened and he'd start begging just like every other rich brat. They must have been contacts. They must have been some weird fancy contacts he wore to go with his stupid gothy image. They must've been expensive too. She'd never seen contacts that glow before, not in all of New York.

He wore skull rings like a douche bag. He'd dyed his hair ridiculously fancy with three white stripes on the side. Coon stripes, she thought she'd heard someone call that style once. Over compensation. He's a little spoiled asshole with money and no personality. He was just some short, skinny, little kid with more than he'd ever deserve.

But he hadn't been afraid.

Liz rolled over on the dirty old mattress and clutched the ragged fleece blanket tightly in her grip, trying to tug it away from her sister who was hogging it like she always did. She supposed that was fine tonight, though. They'd found a place to stay for once. It was drafty, cheap, and dirty, but it was a place. She didn't trust the man who'd let them stay here one bit, though, especially since the room he'd given them had no door. She probably wouldn't sleep that night. She didn't mind much, though. Patty needed to sleep somewhere. It was nearing the end of autumn and the streets were getting cold.

Liz brought her arm up near her face and ran her fingers over the wall just in front of it. She fingered the flakes of yellowed paint, breaking them with just a touch. Tiny little particles fell onto the old worn wood of the floor, cracking with the softest of noises.

Why hadn't he been afraid?

She picked at the pieces, pulling them from the plaster with ease. She peeled them carefully with a dreamlike look in her eyes, not truly focused. She was tired, she knew, but could not sleep. The blanket was tight in her fist, pulled taut over her shoulder and exposing her feet. It smelled sick and dirty, a distinct combination of vomit, cat piss, cigarettes and pot. Her toes were bare and cold.

That little prick was at home in his bed, sleeping perfectly warm in a clean house. What if he'd told his parents what had happened? If he hadn't been afraid, then he had no problem telling and no problem calling the police. Most were too afraid of them to call on them. They always made sure they instilled that fear onto them. That was the only way to keep the money and their freedom and power.

But he wasn't afraid.

She heard someone shuffling in the hallway outside her room. Her eyes darted to the wall parallel with the doorway, the light streaming through and laying a rectangular silhouette of luminescence down on the floor and up the wall. There was no obstruction. They must be further down. They must be by another room in the house.

She closed her eyes and let them stay shut for a short amount of time. She opened them again, though, only because she felt she had to. She slipped her fingernail under more of the paint and lifted it from the wall, exposing more and more of the plaster beneath. At some point she decided she was making a heart. She must have thought of it when it began to look similar to one.

The mattress dipped and creaked slightly as her sister rolled over next to her, now facing her back. She could feel her forehead against her shoulder blade, but no more. She had most of the mattress. Liz was on the very edge, facing the wall of a niche made for a bed much larger than this. She felt protected here, in an odd way, but also had a perfect view of the door. She also was in front of Patty this way.

She heard shuffling again and stiffened. Again, though, the light before the doorway remained pure and unobstructed. She eyed it warily before going back to her task, the thin shavings of paint accumulating against the molding.

Those stupid, naive eyes. She glared at the wall, picturing those unnatural glowing irises in the peeling paint. Those eyes were going to end them. Those eyes, those damned fearless eyes, were going to ruin their lives.

It was his fault.

No one should be dumb enough to walk around that part of Brooklyn wearing a custom tailored suit and Italian leather dress shoes. She was pretty sure those rings and tie-thing of his were silver, too. No one should be ignorant enough to walk around this place like that. He was practically _asking _to be mugged.

He still should've been afraid.

She knew they were going to get arrested. He was going to call the police and they were going to be arrested. They were going to have to hide for a while. They hadn't even gotten any money from him, though. They needed money to get out. They needed to just crawl into some hole somewhere and wait. They just needed to lay down and die for a little while. But they needed money first.

That brat had money. She knew he did. He must've. No one walks around like that and doesn't have a single thing on them. He had to have had something. He had to have been holding out. Maybe they should've tried to take those rings or whatever that thing was he was wearing on his neck. It had been some odd silver skull thing, perhaps a pin of some sort or maybe a weird tie. Whatever it was, it was bound to be worth something.

He barely winced when Patty punched him, though. Patty could fight. She was by far one of the most skilled she'd ever known. She was strong and knew exactly where to hit. It wasn't that Liz wasn't good, because she most certainly was, but Patty was the kind of girl that the "I don't hit girls" rule didn't apply to. She'd win, too.

Liz hated that rule, only because almost every man she'd heard say it was lying. Every one had been an ass. Every one had tried to hurt her when she did something they didn't like. "Try", of course was the most important word here. She'd never let herself be abused like that.

This kid had just taken that hit like it was nothing. This, short, bony, pale, boy in a fancy suit with overdone hair and pointless contacts, had taken a punch from her sister in the gut like it was nothing.

There was more shuffling in the hall. As she glanced to the side, she noticed a piece of light missing from the floor. It darted away quickly, though. She could smell cigarette smoke wafting from the hall. That reminded her that she'd run out of cigarettes that day. And she had no money.

He had no excuse not to be afraid.

He should have been doubled over, clutching his stomach and spitting crimson. Little dots of red should've stained the stark white collar of his shirt. That boy should've been hurting. That boy should've been panicking. That boy should've turned out his pockets and spilled the contents into her hands. He should've given her the money she knew he had.

Those ugly, fake, golden eyes.

She wanted to know what he really looked like, what he really was stripped of all his expensive accessories. He would have brown eyes and brown hair. His hair had been too black to be natural. He was just another boring kid, just as pointless as anyone else. He didn't deserve the artificial purpose that had fallen into his lap at birth. He didn't deserve those perfect teeth, that flawless skin, that fake hair, those shoes. She should've taken those shoes. They probably wore close to the same size, given how short he was. He must've been about twelve.

He should've cried and screamed.

The chips of paint were becoming smaller, for some reason harder to peel off in this spot. She'd almost had her heart, too. She found herself strangely determined to get it. She would mark this wall with that shape, she decided. This wall would always have her mark. It would be the only thing in the room that wasn't disgusting.

The plaster beneath the paint was much cleaner, much whiter. The whole room would look better if this paint was just gone. Of course, the plaster would become just as cracked and disgusting as well. Besides that, who knew if the rest of the wall was like this. Perhaps it would be better to leave it all covered.

This house must've been beautiful once. It had so many rooms and the remnants of meticulous moldings and details. It was horrible that it had fallen into such decay. The doors were mostly missing, the walls full of holes. Tiles were missing from the floor in the kitchen. Windows were broken and the bathrooms were rotting like the teeth of every rat that pretended this was a home. She couldn't beleive what they'd done. They'd killed this place, gnawed at it so slowly and harshly, chewed it up as though it were nothing more than trash. There were just scraps left now, and that's all they'd ever get. Refuse.

Maybe there just wasn't anything to be done about how disgusting this place was. It was beyond repair. There was nothing that would ever save it. This place was doomed to house the scum of the earth. It was only fitting that it be just as awful.

Liz took in a breath and closed her eyes, relinquishing the air from her lungs slowly as she let her head lay more relaxedly on her arm. She opened her eyes again shortly afterward, no matter how little she wanted to. Her fingernails continued to dig into the thin shell of paint, slipping the shards from the wall, slowly carving out the rough shape of a heart.

They needed money. They needed to get out of here. They needed to hide.

Her fingertips were icy, as were her toes. She curled her legs closer to her body, trying to fit them beneath the mostly useless blanket. The cold air seeped into the old thing with ease. It was pointless. The blanket was useless. It brought no comfort, as it was not warm and smelled like someone she'd never met. It was unfamiliar and ratty. It did nothing.

The man who'd given them this room did not know who they were. Few knew them by face. Most knew them only by their weapon form. No one recognized them until they tried to threaten them. She supposed that was a good thing. It was all that kept them alive. If it weren't for their ability, they'd be just another couple of whores. They'd end up just like Mom;

Dead in a gutter with no one to remember her.

Foot steps again, heavy ones trying to be soft in the hall. It was just a quick shuffle, just a few steps. She could smell smoke again, the strong, burning scent coming clear through the doorway. She needed a cigarette. She needed to be calm.

There were more steps, someone adjusting their position. Her hand stopped moving, resting against the peeling wall. She stared unwaveringly at the brightness of the doorway, at the light bleeding in from the hall. It was obscured slightly again, just a little bite taken out of the side by someone's arm. She heard someone cough slightly; a thick, groggy cough.

She did not remove her line of sight from that doorway. She silently willed that man to go away. She glared at him through the brick and the plaster, through the cracking, chipping paint. Her lips stayed glued shut, though within her head she screamed at him.

They should have that kid's money.

He should've just handed everything over to them. He shouldn't have questioned it. He shouldn't have had that amazed look on his face. He shouldn't have been interested. He should've been afraid. He should've been terrified. He shouldn't have been able to fight back. No one is supposed to be able to do that. No one is supposed to be that fast. No one is supposed to be able to kick that hard and still be that skinny.

The bruise on her stomach ached as she scrunched her body up tighter, safer. The skin beneath her fingernail started to sting slightly with each bit of paint severed from the wall. Every little bit of paint dug sharply into her skin, stabbing and turning it raw.

Her blood went cold suddenly as another bite was taken from the light. This one, though, did not disappear. The light did not reclaim its space. She held her breath, ice flowing through her body. Patty's form became more apparent behind her, the softness of her hair and the very shape of her forehead against her back.

She glared out into the hall, driving knives into the place she knew he was standing. She pushed him away, shoved him down the hall, fluidly, easily. Yet he still stood there, stealing light from the doorway.

Her eyes felt heavy, but she could not close them. It was an odd feeling of being both entirely exhausted and intensely attentive. It made her muscles stiff and her head hurt. She couldn't take her eyes off that doorway, not for a second.

_Go Away. _she willed. _Just go the fuck away. _She repeated the thoughts over and over again in her mind, wishing she could push them out of her throat. The words were stuck, though, behind tightly pressed lips and a locked jaw. Her teeth were pressed so hard against each other it was making her head hurt. She didn't notice, though. She wasn't conscious of just how much stress her body was under.

He was still there, still there, somehow invading them. He was right there. There. There. _There_. Why wouldn't he leave? Why couldn't he just leave them alone?

But he wasn't doing anything. He wasn't hurting them, technically. But he was there, he was there. He was intruding, he was standing, he was waiting. He wanted something. He was there. Why wouldn't he just _go?_

_Go. _she willed. _Go. Go. Go. GO._

She heard him sniff, like he had a cold, a gagging noise from a revolting man. He was there. Why, oh why, the _fuck _was he there?

And then the blanket, so still in her fingers was tugged.

She froze, still like a statue, her blood turning to ice in her veins and locking her in place. Her lungs deflated and curled tightly into her chest. She was frozen, wide eyed, there, there, there.

Then she breathed.

Patty had just rolled over suddenly, pulling the blanket, nearly tearing it from her fingers. She tried to sigh, to let out a calming breath, but it was caught in her throat. She exhaled out her nose rather roughly.

If he'd given up his money, they wouldn't be in this situation. They wouldn't have to be staying here. Or at least, that was what she wanted to believe, that this was his fault and this could've been avoided. Today could not have gone worse.

That kid, that stupid kid, would be the death of them.

The shadow slipped away suddenly, allowing the luminescence to reclaim the floor. She heard footsteps again, this time heading away from the room. They clunked down the hall, heavy and uncaring. The smoky smell went with them.

She kept stiff, though, for quite a time afterward, her eyes still glued to the doorway. She didn't trust it. She didn't trust a single person in this house besides herself and Patty. No, she didn't trust a single person in this city besides herself and Patty. No one had given them a reason why they should.

They weren't coming back here. They were going to avoid this place and all its inhabitants at all costs. She despised them. She hated them all. She wanted it to be morning so that they could leave. She wanted to get out of here.

He was out of his mind, whoever he was, the man who'd leant them this room. He'd expect payment tomorrow. She knew he would. They always did. He may not have said it when they'd made the agreement, but they always wanted something. Nothing was free. There'd always be something.

That stupid fucking kid, that brat, that fucking dick. He should've given them his money. They should have his wealth. He should be cowering. He should've been on the ground. He should've been crying. He should've been... He should've been...

He should've been dead.

He should've been dead, dead, dead.

No.

No. Wait wait wait, no. No, they can't kill him. They can't kill anyone. They can't have a murder on their hands. They can't afford it.

No no no. That's not what he should be.

He shouldn't be dead.

No no no.

That's not what he should be.

She breathed deep, drawing the musty, dirty air into her lungs in hopes to clean her mind of those thoughts. Homicide would ruin them. They can't truly kill anyone, at least not on purpose. They may have killed someone before, in a fight, but she wasn't sure. She may have survived. She didn't know.

She probably didn't go to the hospital. People usually didn't in worry that they'd get in trouble for assaulting someone or something. No, she didn't go to the hospital. Definitely not.

She'd been bleeding an awful lot, though...

Footsteps in the corridor beat quite conspicuously against the filthy, rotting, festering wood. They were heading towards their room again, coming up the hall, nearing the doorway. She watched the light on the floor carefully.

The footsteps stopped, quieting until they were nothing at all, though they echoed and shook inside her skull. The light on the floor remained unobstructed, perfect and clean. But he was there again.

He was there.

He was there.

He was there, there, _there._

He stood and he breathed, inhaling his sick, dispicable breaths, hacking and disgusting. He smelled like smoke. She could tell it so easily. It was so strong on his clothes.

Agitation, an itching in every place inside her body, squirmed and scratched inside her. She didn't understand why he didn't just go the fuck away. She could pay him in the morning, with something material. She could give him something, could ask for a couple days maybe, and get him some money. It'd be easy, simple.

Why was he there?

She heard him step, heard him shift, heard him waiting, waiting, waiting. The light, a tiny sliver of the light, was missing, but out by his elbow, by the winkles in the thin, cheap, fabric of his jacket.

She wanted him to leave, wanted to be able to sleep. It'd been a couple days, as she recalled, since her eyes had been shut for more than a few seconds straight. They were getting heavy, weighted by fatigue and sinking under the pressure of insomnia into blackening, sagging sockets too old for her face.

Then he just walked away again, back down the hallway with his heavy dirty shoes.

And Liz stared and stared at that doorway. She did not think, she barely blinked. She just stared and stared. Maybe there was no reason to be worried. Maybe he just liked pacing. Maybe this was something he nomally did. Maybe she was just paranoid.

Maybe she just needed to sleep.

So she just leaned her head further into her arm and tried to let her neck, which had stiffened considerably, go lax. She didn't keep her eyes off the door, though. They strained in the dark and began to ache, little fearful knives slowly sinking into the backs of her eyes.

She couldn't sleep. She was too worried about what might happen to Patty and herself if she did. She could not. She cloud not. She could not.

But her eyes were rolling and her lids were slipping as she stared at that open doorway. But she couldn't sleep. She had to stay awake and make sure nothing happened. She had to stay awake.

She had to. She had to. She had to.

She could not sleep, she could not, she could not, she could not, she...

And she was in the alley again, with her little sister in her pistol form pressed up against his pale, creamy neck. His eyes were golden and shimmering and so full of impossible confidence. Her sister was laughing and howling and taunting, loud in her ears and brining that strength and anger into her own chest. There was a thick cloud of static, though, swimming around her head and blocking out all the other noise, like water echoing in her ears.

_Go home._

It was louder, clearer, than anything else, and his words didn't quite match his mouth. Not that she could really see it. She could only see his honey-colored eyes and shadowy hair, streaked with horizontal white bars. How many stripes were there? Three, or four, or maybe five?

_Just go home. _

And then her eyes snapped open. Wait, when had they closed? She'd been staring at the doorway. Wait. Wait wait wait. Something was off.

Something was... Someone was...

Her fist was in his filthy, unshaven, face in seconds. The next, there was a whole new spot of blood on this filthy mattress. And of course, now her sister had been woken up by the asshole's yell.

He stumbled backward and away from them, but now he was just furious. His eyes were livid, and even though it was dark, she could tell they were stained with bourbon and cough medicine.

"Patty," she ordered. Her sister obeyed without hesitation. In a quick flash of pink light, there was a gun in her hand. She never felt more powerful in her life than she did with a gun in her grip.

His hands were tight on her shoulder almost immediately, his rough, unclean hands squeezing them and squeezing them as tight as he could.

"You two cunts don't have any money, and you gotta pay up somehow, y'know," he hissed, alcohol on his breath.

Liz stuck the barrel of the gun into his exposed chest. "You're not getting a single thing, you perverted fuck," she yelled back.

"Come on, don't be a bitch," he cooed as he wrapped one of his rough, meaty hands around her wrist and tried to pull the gun away from his chest. She wrapped her finger around the trigger.

He continued to pull on her hand, but she was able to keep her hand where it was, if only barely. She felt him move over her, further on top of her.

"Get the fuck off," she ordered, and before he could deny her, she pulled the trigger. A flash of pink light and a loud snap later and he was sent backwards.

She bolted upright and off that disgusting mattress as he coughed and groaned and swore on the putrid floor. She ran through the doorway as fast as she could, the whole time cursing him and herself and that stupid kid and this disgusting city and every single cockroach and rat that waltzed in it's streets.

"You stupid fucking bitch."

But she didn't listen. She didn't hear anything but her heartbeat, not even her sister as she yelled and swore right back at him. Her feet flew down the rotting, sunken, warped staircase and through the broken kitchen and out the cheap screen door. It groaned and creaked as she through it open and then floated closed far too slowly as she ran down the stairs and onto the sidewalk. She finally heard it click closed when she'd gone past several houses.

But she still heard them coming, their obnoxious yelling slamming right into her ears. She clutched her sister so tight in her grip. She could never never let her go, no matter how many times she yelled at her that "We could take them! Come on! Let's go back! Let's kick their fucking asses!"

No no no. She couldn't go back. There were too many of them in that house. She couldn't do it. She couldn't. She couldn't. She couldn't. She couldn't do anything. She couldn't ever do anything and she was so so sick of it!

They had to get out of here, out of this district, out of this city, out of this hellhole. But first they had to get away from these bastards. She could hear them behind her, could hear their shouting and their heavy, violent feet.

This happened so often, like horrible cycle. They'd be on top one minute, with all the money and all the power, and on the bottom the next minutes. It was an endless circling waltz of roaches and rats. She wished it would end. She wished this wasn't how her life had to be.

She hated her mother especially at times like this, for being a pretty pretty whore. She hated that she looked like her. She hated being pretty. She didn't need to be pretty. She didn't need to have a nice face. After all, pretty things were only there to be abused.

She turned the corner at the end of the street. There weren't that many cars in these parts of the city at night, and the street lights were the only light. You couldn't see the stars at all in this city, though, and the light from the moon was a maddening shade of yellow that barely ever reached the streets. It's horrendously smiling face was huge tonight, though. It was right over head. She thought she felt a little bit of the blood dripping from it's teeth land on her face...

And all she could do was run away while they chased after them, demanding whorish payment.

They had to get away... they had to lose them. They had to they had to theyhadtohadtohadto...

As she ran down the street and they started to get closer, out of the corner of her frantic eye she thought she saw a pair of golden glowing eyes. Maybe it was a cat, but... There was something so off about those eyes...

* * *

><p><em>AN: OH GOD CLIFFHANGER! As though you don't know what happens to them. xD Anyway... I changed the whole italian mafia thing to this because... well... NewYork City is not like it was in 1960's back and white movies. I mean, it'd be cool if it was, but... it's not. xD_

_Next chapter will be from Kid's POV! BE EXCITED FOR HIS PRE-SERIES BRATTINESS!_


	14. Finding prt3:The Raven Prince's Symmetry

_A/N: and part 3... Also, Kid is a brat. A gigantic, spoiled, overprivileged, brat. Just letting you know._

_Oh, and I've never been to any police department ever and therefore don't know what they look like inside, so I'm sort of just making it up for this story. You'll know what I mean. I also don't know how they work. Sorry..._

_Also, irony is my best friend, and this chapter is full of it. So I had a lot of fun writing this..._

_Still not owning Soul Eater_

* * *

><p>Kid pressed the frigid bag of ice to his throbbing skull, though he'd insisted it wasn't necessary. The cold, at first, actually hurt more than the bump forming on the right side of his forehead. As the hard, freezing cold bled into his head, however, and numbness started to travel into his face, it did begin to help.<p>

But it wasn't like it wouldn't be completely healed in less than an hour anyway.

As the cold seeped into his fingers through the thin paper towel the icepack was rapped in, he hoped someone would finally tell him what he needed to know. Why the NYPD, one of the busiest police forces in the world, had time to make sure he had a freaking icepack for a wound _(that was blindingly, blindingly painful)_ that barely hurt at all was something he didn't understand. Yet, they still made him wait here for an hour.

_(It'd only been a few minutes)_

He sat in a fake-leather chair up against a window, exactly in the middle of a row of three, in the reception area of the police department. It appeared spotless, smelling strongly of antiseptic and floor polish. It was clean smelling, he supposed, but he had the distinct feeling that it was absolutely filthy. So he squirmed inside himself for every moment he sat here, staring at the corners where an outline of dust and dirt and grime sat, ground into the crevice between the wall and the floor.

He switched the icepack to the other side of his head, a new aching cold pressing into his scalp sending a chill through his entire skeleton. He had to do his best to make it even, though, since there was only a wound on one side of his head,_ (that was probably festering into a purply, yellow revolting, disgracing, disgusting, awful, hideous...) _that was already surly bruising. _(only on one side, one side, one side) _He sucked in a deep breath, tasting of wax and cleaning products and ass-kissers.

That blinding white light and the ringing in his ears, the red little spots in his eyes, the loss of his peripheral vision, that laugh, that laugh, that stupid laugh, that sharp, heavy pain _(only on one side)_ kept replaying itself over and over again behind his eyes.

The snap, the bright pink flash, the little bit of smoke, the throbbing smack of the shot _(on only one side) _just kept going and going.

The other thing, though, that kept bleeding into his memory was the two visions, side by side, of each of those two girls' gun forms. The shiny silver sides and little teeth-like marks, the narrowed-eye-like design... They were identical, weren't they? He thought they were, but... No, that wasn't possible. There was no way. Two people couldn't have identical weapon forms. That was like having identical thumb-prints, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

He breathed a sigh, frustratedly and through his nose. No, no, it was impossible. They couldn't be identical. It was impossible. Nothing, nothing, was that perfect. And how could something that rare, that beautiful, be living like _that_? Why would they just be mugging people like that?

No, they couldn't be perfect. He must not've seen them right. They couldn't be perfect. _(but they were, they were, they were!) _He must've looked too quick. He must not've seen them right.

_(But if they were!)_

Kid didn't have a weapon partner. He just didn't want one. He was fine by himself, not that his father sent him on missions like this that often. But he could conduct his wavelength without one. _(sort of)_ He didn't really _need _one yet. He didn't really want one either. That was the only reason. _(All of the DWMA weapons were vomit worthy!) _He could wait. It wasn't vital. _(Not yet) _

He wouldn't need one for a long time, not until he was grown and had taken his father's place. By then, there'd be DeathSythes, his father had told him, that he'd be able to choose from. They'd all be students of the DWMA _(who were disgusting, disgusting, disgusting!) _who were well trained and high in their class. They'd be just fine, just perfect.

He switched the icepack back to the bruise as the cloud of numbness had become to dissipate, leaving behind the blaring ache.

It wasn't like it was ethical to have two weapons anyway, not that he'd even consider taking those two on. They were far too violent, too out of hand, too likely to become kishin. They were criminals. They'd shot him in the head, for christ's sake! And they weren't identical. That was impossible. _(but they were! they were!) _Not that he was thinking of partnering with them anyway...

That wouldn't be intelligent.

That ringing noise, those little red spots, like blood spattered on his vision...

He probably wouldn't ever see them again anyway. They didn't matter. They were just criminals, just common, filthy muggers. They were unimportant. They were useless, useless, useless... He'd forget about them by the end of the day. _(but they were beautiful) _

He'd find someone better suited to be a weapon partner somewhere else. He'd find someone another time. It didn't matter. The weapons at the DWMA were fine. _(and would probably make him vomit) _There was no use dwelling on these girls.

He breathed a sigh.

He had been perfectly on time for the appointment he'd made to learn about these two criminals his father had sent him to dispose of. This only deepened the annoyance that had already settled into his mind. His father knew exactly who these two people were. He knew where they were. He knew how they operated. He knew everything about them and how to find them.

But for some (_incredibly stupid, childish, annoying, idiotic, spastic, ridiculous...) _reason his father had decided it would be more of a learning opportunity for him if he were to figure it out on his own. So now he was sitting here, in the New York City Police Department, waiting for someone to tell him who "The Thompson Sisters" were, what they looked like, and where they might be.

Not that he'd be able to focus. He could barely sit still at the moment with his head being so unbalanced. He could barely sit still, his legs and arms changing positions just about every second. Why couldn't it be in the _middle_ of his forehead? He wrapped his feet and ankles around the legs of the chair, then unwrapped them, then switched the icepack to the other side of his head, then leaned the left, then wrapped his ankles back around the chair legs, then leaned back to the right, then back into the chair, then unwrapped his legs, then switched the icepack again and again.

But no. Wait. It didn't matter. It was fine. He could deal with it. It didn't even hurt that much. _(but it was only on one side)_ It didn't matter. He could deal with it. It was fine. It didn't matter. It was fine. He could deal with it. It was fine. It didn't hurt. It didn't hurt. It was fine. _(but it was probably going to kill him) _

Nausea built up in his stomach as he twisted in his seat. Was the secretary staring at him? His champagne eyes shifted to the side quickly, quick enough that she didn't see him look, and then went back to staring at his lap. Yeah, she was staring at him.

It didn't matter. The pain in his head didn't bother him. It didn't mater. It was fine.

God, he felt sick.

But it was fine. It was okay. It didn't even hurt. _(but it was only on one side)_

When were they going to just tell him he could go talk to someone? He just needed to quickly see their files so he could find them. It'd be so easy and quick. Why did he have to wait for hours? _(it'd only been a few minutes) _He just needed to know who the Thompson sisters were. That's all he needed. Then he could leave.

He could feel the nausea swelling into his throat. He swallowed, hoping that that would for some reason make it go away. He leaned back into the chair and closed his eyes, switching the icepack as he did so. It's okay. It's fine. It doesn't matter. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. _(but it's only on one side)_

He breathed deeply. Couldn't they just come get him already?

He needed to think about something else, anything else. Okay. What else was there to think about? There was the dirt in the crevices. No no. Don't think about that. That's disgusting.

Sickness was welling up his throat and he did everything he could not to gag. He shifted his legs and the icepack again. Why did the secretary have to keep staring?

His fingers crawled around the arm of the chair as the rest of his body sat deathly stiff. He had one hand on the arm of the chair, and one one the ice pack. More unbalance.

He groaned as quietly as he could. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. It didn't matter. He breathed again. It didn't matter. It didn't. It didn't. It didn't itdidn'titdidn'titdidn't... _(But it was only on one_ side!)

He sucked more air into his lungs, but had a hard time getting it out again and gagged on it. It didn't matter. It didn't even hurt that bad. _(but it was only on one damn side!) _He could deal with this.

What was he here for again?

He switched the icepack back. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Why was the secretary staring? Wait. Was she still staring? He shift his wide eyes away from his lap again to look over at her desk. His vision, though, was blocked by a dress shirt and a cardigan.

His eyes snapped up, to see the secretary right in front of him.

"I've been telling you for a couple minutes now..." she started, but the rest of her words bubbled into boiled water. He watched her face as she spoke, but no words came out or her rapidly moving lips. His mouth started to taste metallic all of a sudden, and the back of his throat was burning. Her lips stopped moving then, and she looked to be waiting for him to say something.

When he opened his mouth to respond, though, his words were gargled and sloshed out of his mouth with some thick sticky liquid. He couldn't talk through whatever this was, but he felt strangely good now. He didn't feel sick anymore and the asymmetry of his head no longer bothered him, though there was a shakiness to his limbs that hadn't been there before.

This hot, slick, ooze was dripping down his lips and down his chin, and his vision turned to blackening fuzz at the edges. He could still see, though, that her eyes were wide and horrified. Why? What was the issue? He felt much better now.

He felt his muscles relax as he sank back in his chair. His nausea was gone. Everything was fine now. Why was she staring? She looked so frantic.

Also, what exactly was dripping from his mouth? Was he drooling? If that was the case, then... Embarrassment welled up in his face and he thought for a moment that he might scream.

As quickly as he could, he brought the palm of his hand up to his mouth, frigid from the icepack, and wiped the thick sticky liquid from his mouth. He pulled his hand away and saw a smear of crimson on his milky skin.

Oh. It was blood.

* * *

><p>It took Kid a very long time to explain that he in fact did <em>not <em>need to go to the hospital and that they did not need to call an ambulance. Of course, they already had by the time he'd woken up, but he did eventually manage to convince them, if only just, that he was fine and did not desire medical attention.

Now that this was straightened out, though, he was sitting in a chair in front of a grayish metal desk, gray carpet under his feet, and a man who was in charge of criminal records. Finally.

The man, Mr. Sanders was his name, plucked a tissue from the box on his desk, his hideously asymmetrically organized desk, and handed it to him. He took it from him quickly and swallowed the bile rising in his throat from the state of his desk.

"You're... You're sure you're all right?" he said, the wrinkles in his forehead deepening as his eyebrows came together. It wasn't as though his desk was unclean or anything, it's just that, it was so unbalanced looking. It was horrible. And then there was the pounding that was still in his head. No! No... He was not doing this twice in the same hour. Not today. Not when he had things to do.

"I'm fine," he said, wiping his mouth with the tissue. _(Tissues were not supposed to be used for your mouth) _

He didn't seem to believe him.

"The bruise on my head," he pointed to it and tried not to gag. "It's making me unbalanced. I'm sorry. I'll be fine, though."

He gave him a rather confused and frightened look, the florescent lights shining rightly off his balding head. Despite this he continued slowly.

"What did you say your name was again?" he asked after a hesitant pause.

"Oh," he said, slipping a hand into the inner pocket of his jacket. He handed him a little plastic rectangular card. "Death the Kid. My father is Lord Death."

He leaned over the desk and took the card from him, a confused look on his face with a bit of amusement bleeding into it. "Right," he said, a bit of a smile tugging at his mouth. He handed the ID back to him and said, "Well, then, um... Death, wha-"

"Kid"

"What?"

"I go by Kid," he explained simply. "And I have been sent by my father and the DWMA to deal with a problem your city has been having involving two girls who call themselves the "Thompson Sisters". As such, I would like to see their files so that I can find them and dispatch of them as quickly as possible."

"Ah," he responded, adjusting himself and folding his hands in front of him. _(He just needed to move them a little to the left so that they were in the middle...) _"Well, we knew someone was coming to deal with that particular case but, um, well..." he paused. "Well, we didn't think it would be a kid."

"I can assure you I'm quite capable," he stated, his hands folded neatly in _(the center of) _his lap.

"You're sure? You don't seem to be in the best of health, erm, Kid," he said hesitantly. "I'd really hate to see you get hurt by these two." _(because then he'd have a lawsuit)_

"I am perfectly capable to doing this job," Kid insisted. "I simply need information on them so that I can find them. I understand they've become a bit of a nuisance."

"Yes," he said, still eyeing him carefully. He wished he'd stop that. He wasn't stupid. "Well, I have their files here," he stated as he began typing and clicking on his computer, his fingers pattering over the keys. "Their actual names are Elizabeth and Patricia Thompson and, as you said, they have become something of a nuisance.

"They've been charged for assault and armed robbery. They are weapons, which is why we've called the DWMA n to deal with them. We have not been able to officially convict them yet due to the fact that we haven't had any leads ourselves as to where to find them. Normally, this sort of thing would be dealt with easily and they'd be put on trial and put away pretty quickly but..."

_(the police are so incompetent when it comes to weapon-types.)_

"Well, anyway, here are their pictures and their files," he said, twisting the computer screen around so that he could see. "I could print them out for you if you'd like me to."

"That wont be necessary," Kid said, staring at the screen from his seat with surprised eyes. Two different windows were pulled up, one overlaying the other, each with one of the two girl's files. Their mugshots stared at him, both with cobalt eyes and and blonde hair. The older one, Elizabeth, had long dark-blonde hair tinted slightly reddish. Her face looked exhausted, covered in smeared eyeliner and dirt from the streets. The younger one, Patricia, had short staw-colored hair that fell around her chin and nearly covered her wild, wide eyes. She too, though, looked exhausted.

That flash, that bang, that ringing, that loss of vision.

"Oh," he said, eyebrows raised. "They tried to rob me today."

He wished he'd known this when it had happened. That'd have saved him a lot of hell.

At the look on Mr. Sanders' face, though, he added quickly, "But I'm going to be the one dealing with it so it's not necessary for any action to be taken." He stared at their faces on the monitor, listening to that manic laugh in his mind. Just below them, like all weapons had, were pictures of their pistol forms. He studied those pictures far more carefully than the one's of their faces.

They each had a skull detail on the grips, he noted, which would make them attractive regardless of wether or not they were identical. They were shimmering silver and inky black. They really were beautiful guns. Now if they were identical...

His eyes flashed back and forth between the two, looking at them with the highest amount of concentration. He matched each part of each picture to it's sister. Back and forth, his eyes flitted, so focused and unblinking. Their barrels were identical. Their grips were identical. Their magazines were identical. They were the same size. Even their calibers were identical. They... They couldn't be this perfect. There was no way.

But they were. They were the absolutely, positively, impossibly, perfect in every way.

And he had to kill them.

* * *

><p>"Father, I can't."<p>

His father sighed through his stark white mask. "Kid, this really is something that must be done. They may seem to be just robbers, but they're really a danger to the public."

"But they have _identical weapon forms,_" he pressed, clutching his hands together. "You yourself told me how rare that is. We can't just waste them."

"Kiddo, you have blood on your mouth, are you okay?" he asked tentatively, blatantly ignoring what his son had said.

"Yes, I'm..." he wiped his hand on his mouth again, trying to finally get the last of it. "I'm fine." One of the bathroom's florescent lights flickered over head, a thousand flies trapped inside each of them. He swallowed more bloody bile as he continued.

"Father, please, these two aren't even kishin yet and they're just so incredibly perfect. I can't kill them," he stated. Before his father could interject, he continued. "I understand that they are criminals and need to be somehow removed from harming the public, but is killing them _really _necessary? I mean, they really haven't hurt anyone that badly." He could feel his father about to speak. "And you've always said that there isn't any reason to kill someone who doesn't deserve it."

"What do they look like? You said they were two girls right?" said the man with the long bloody locks avidly, standing next to his father's shadowy form. His hands were clutched together excitedly. Kid could feel his father's glare through the mirror, even though it didn't rest on himself.

Kid lifted the two print-outs of their mugshots up to the mirror, hoping that this would either get Spirit on his side, or get his father to make the Death Sythe to shut up. Either of these or both reactions would be favorable.

"Oh they both have really awesome bodies, and that older one is-"

And his face was driven into the floor via his father's enormous hand. Kid chose to ignore the fact that these two girls were only a few years older than Death Scythe's daughter and got back to the real issue.

"As I was saying," he said. "I don't think it would be ethical or favorable to kill these two and I really think it would be better to create a different sentence for them other than death."

"I see," said his father, tilting his head to the side.

Kid nodded and clasped his hands behind his back, waiting patiently for his father to speak now that he was done.

"Well what do you think should be done with them?" his father asked him easily.

He paused and swallowed hesitantly, his fingers fidgeting slightly.

"Well," he began. "I was actually wondering if it would alright if... I were to make them my weapons."

There was another pause in which he held his breath and his father just stared at him through the empty, black holes in his mask. His fingers twisted behind his back, playing with the little skull rings nervously.

"Hmmm..." His father tilted his head in the other direction.

Kid looked to the side and then the other as he waited _(impatiently) _unsurely. His heart was pounding and his lips were tight. He looked off to the side again for just a moment. These bathrooms were revolting, absolutely revolting. Maybe before he went to retrieve these two he could clean it a little. The dirt and grime in between the tiles was horrendous and there was a puddle of water, he noticed, leaking from one of the toilets with a piece of toilet paper sitting it. This was so disgusting. It was horrible. And the flickering, migrane-inducing, lights were full of flies.

Didn't anyone ever clean this place?

Really. Two of the three stalls, he was sure, had broken doors. There was a thick layer of scum on the edges of every sink, including the one he was standing in front of, much to his displeasure, and there was soap gook caked around the spouts of all of the dispensers. And the toilet paper, probably should be folded into a triangle. Yes, that at least must be done before he leaves. He must fold the toilet paper.

Wait, what was he doing, again?

"Well..."

Oh yes, his father.

"I think that's a perfect idea! A very good solution," he finally responded happily. "It's a good thing you came up with it before you killed them, too. That would've been a horrible idea."

His mind went blank and his mouth fell slightly ajar. Did he...? Did he really...?

"Yes," he continued. "I'm definitely proud of you for making this decision. You're doing very well at becoming a reaper."

Of course. Of course he would do this. Why would he ever expect anything different? Of course he didn't want him to kill them. Of course he had some other idea for them. Of course this had been a test. He'd wanted to see how well he could make decisions about people's deaths. Why hadn't he figured it out before? It wasn't like it was the first time he'd done this.

Sometimes he felt more like he was the adult and his father was nine. Very often, in fact.

"Although," his father said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "I had never really intended for anyone to use them as weapons. I'm not entirely sure they are exactly in the right mind for that sort of thing."

"Father, please," he pleaded. Kid could Spirit behind him giving the two of them a look like they were insane all of a sudden, his mouth open like he wanted to interrupt.

"It might work, if they can prove themselves civil," he continued. "On a period of probation... Possibly..."

Kid's eyes lit up immediately and the words were out of his mouth faster than anyone was expecting. "Thank you father. I wont disappoint you." And he bowed and disconnected the mirror just as his father was about to object.

* * *

><p><em>AN: I'm sorry. The fight/rescue/union won't happen until next chapter, which will be the last installment in this section. It will be from all three of their POV's, though not all at once... You'll see. _

Now... About Kid's... EPIC OCDspams... I've been thinking a lot about this. In episode six, Stein states that Liz and Patty's soul wavelengths "quiet his neurotic tendencies" and I've been wondering ever since then... How could he POSSIBLY have been worse than he currently is?

And all I came up with was vomit.

I had originally been planning to explain hid blood puking as him like... actually just having a very odd nosebleed. Like... Basically, it'd be that it was just so severe because of the stress he was under that it would end up coming out of his mouth, but... idk. The nosebleed idea actually seems more logical to me, and I have this horrible habit of over thinking everything, as I've stated before. (that's how I relate myself to Kid in order to write for him) And I'm pretty sure that there is no medical reason anyone would puke JUST blood. I mean, I know that if your stomach lining is bleeding, or you have an ulcer or something, you might vomit blood, but, there'd be stomach acid and stuff too, right?

So, in all the thinking I went through and all the chem-classes I zoned out of to come up with the nosebleed conclusion, I still just left it with blood-vomit, which makes absolutely no sense. Ngh...

Idk... maybe he has a weird shiningami-gland in his throat/blood vessel that ruptures when he's stressed... I have no idea. Maybe I'll just keep the nosebleed thing for another time.

Um, anyway, that AN was wayyyyy too long.

Reviews make me happy.


	15. Finding prt 4: Plague of Rats

_A/N: and Part four. This is the last part. I needed to put Kid's ridiculousness in first 'cause I don't like doing a lot of heavy stuff all in a row. Something needed to break it up. otherwise, this would've been entirely from Liz and Patty's views. _

_I have also drastically revised Liz and Patty's stories since I first began writing these things, so they don't exactly line up with what I put in "Dealing with Death" I know these are supposed to be unrelated, but... they're all still a part of my head-canon and should exist in the same universe.. I may end up revising those first couple of chapters._

_ALSO! Important thingy! In the previous chapter, I was rather unclear about why Lord Death had told Kid to kill the Thompsons... Really sorry about that. My fault. It's been clarified and fixed. hopefully... _

_What's this? I don't own SoulEater? Who ever knew. _

* * *

><p>They were still there, still coming, as the moon shone above them with a bleeding cheshire smile and no stars dared to defy the city below. They scurried and screeched like overgrown rats rushing through the sewers, stinking of the filth no one else dared to touch. Liz ran blindly away from them, her sister held tightly in her hand, her suede boots stained with the dirt of the street beating against the pavement almost as fast as her heart was beating.<p>

She rounded another corner and fled into an empty parking lot, the asphalt scraping under her footsteps. Her legs were never going to get tired, she felt. Her lungs would never run out of air. She would never stop running. She couldn't stop running.

Those rats were still too close. She thought she could feel their filthy claws and tiny, gnashing teeth digging into her back, tangling in her hair, pulling pulling pulling. She had to get away. She had to keep running. She could never stop. They were just behind her, yelling, screaming. Two of them were weapons like her and her sister. She'd seen one of them turn into a blade, and another turn into a black handgun, just like them. They were just like them.

She ran across the parking lot, the November air cold on her naked stomach, and began to wonder why in the world this was their life. Why were they born into this shit-hole?

Little flashes of a pretty tan face, far too much like her own, stained and smeared with too much white makeup and glitter and dripping with tears, framed by long bleached hair and cheap extensions. Then there was that same pretty face, all the makeup washed off and a scowl on her brow. Mostly, though, she remembered sparkly high-healed shoes and stockings of all different sorts. She remembered her legs, sometimes bare and sometimes covered with torn up jeans, and her hands with their long, painted nails.

Most vividly and with the most reluctance, she saw those dirty white foam flip-flops and her pretty painted toenails with the bottoms of frayed jeans draping over her feet. They stood on concrete, spattered with cherry red paint for some reason she could not place, and she wasn't supposed to look at them. A cold, thin hand with cheaply manicured nails kept grabbing at her face, pulling her line of vision away from those shoes to look up at the pretty, makeup covered face with eyes she couldn't remember.

Liz cut through the other side of the parking lot, the asphalt changing again to concrete and the rats still coming for her and her sister. Why were they coming? Why couldn't they stop? Why did this have to start?

Icy, delicate hands with sharp nails cupped her face and pulled her back to look at that smear of makeup and that thick blonde hair. "Lizzie, Lizzie, listen to me." But she didn't want to, not right now and not ever again. "Hey, Lizzie, Lizzie-beth, look at me and listen." That voice was hoarse and sick.

"Lizzie-Beth." So affectionate that nickname had been. "Lizzie-Beth, look at your mommy." _But that's not what you are. _No matter what way her face was twisted, she still looked at those flip-flops. "Lizzie, you and Patty are gonna have to stay here for a while."

She ran down the street, quick little rabbit feet pounding on the pavement as she looked for anywhere else to go. She had to find somewhere to run to, had to find somewhere to hide. She had to hide, had to survive, had to let her sister live. They needed to stop running and just hide, even as her sister laughed insanely in her hand and shouted and screamed like this was all a fun game. Everything was a game to her. Everything was just good fun. Liz had to keep it that way, had to make sure she never stopped playing.

"Lizzie-Beth, look at me." She didn't want to. "Lizzie, you two stay here for a while. Take this. This is twenty dollars. Only use it for emergencies. Mommy will be back, okay? Lizzie, look at me." _No you_ _wont._

There was a warehouse up ahead that she knew about. No one used it anymore and all the windows had been smashed by the vermin who played inside it with their fancy pills and plants. Without another thought, she rounded into the empty lot that sat before it's doors, with broken concrete and little bits of weeds growing in between the cracks.

"Sis, sis we can handle them! Why don't you fight them back?"

Why was this their life? Why was this happening to them?

"Lizzie, just stay here with your sister for a little while." Her hand had been in her's back then too, small and soft and coated in dirt. "Mommy will be back."

"Sis, come on! Lemme fight them!" Liz ran into the enormous, rusting and perfectly open and welcoming door, the rats still calling after her. Quick, quick, quick were her little rabbit's feet, leaving bloody little footprints behind for the rats to lap up and follow like a trail of candy.

The concrete floors, littered with little broken shards of glass and plastic bottles and soda cans. They were still coming, with their knives and their gun that shot at her feet as they flitted through this dead, broken building. They were still coming. They were still there. They were still there there there.

Why did they live like this?

"Mommy will be back."

They were still coming, still shouting, still gnawing at her back.

"Lizzie, you and Patty stay here for a little while."

Because Mommy had told them to.

* * *

><p>Why didn't she just turn around and shoot them all? She could make their heads just pop and all their brains and all their blood would come out. Patty had always been curious about just what that would look like. She'd always wondered how much stuff was in there. These one's probably didn't have too much, though. There wouldn't be a whole lot to come out, at least not from their heads.<p>

She didn't understand why she didn't just fight them back. They didn't seem that tough to her. They didn't seem that scary. They were just stupid guys, just dumb and unimportant. They wouldn't be hard. But maybe she should listen to her sister. Maybe Liz knew this was best. She always knew when to run, after all.

Her sister was smart. Her sister was tactile. Her sister knew what she was doing. Patty should listen. But...

These guys were gonna kill them if she didn't do something.

"Liz, just lemme do it," she offered again. That way her sister wouldn't have to be so scared. She could feel her soul pulsing and choking, terrified like she'd never felt before. She didn't like her sister to be afraid.

Patty stared at the floor as it flew underneath her, cracked and dirty and covered in garbage. Those guys were shouting at them still, too. They just didn't know how to shut up, did they?

They really liked to use the words "whore" and "cunt", too. It was really funny. She kept laughing at them 'cause they just sounded so stupid. She couldn't help it. Even though she wanted to help her sister and be serious, she just couldn't keep the laughter from spilling from her mouth.

But they really did need to do something. They couldn't run forever. They had to do something. They had to. They weren't exactly going to lose them. They had to do something.

But her sister wanted to keep running, and she always listened to her sister.

But... But... They just can't run forever.

"Sis, come on, let me do it!" she tried again. "I can do something, please?"

She wasn't listening. Her ears were probably all blocked out by her heart beat. She could feel it in her hand around her barrel, the pulsing of blood drumming through her fingers. Why was she so scared of these guys? They were stupid!

She had to do something. She had to. They couldn't keep running. Her sister was getting tired anyway.

She let her body slip into that state of pure energy, an odd feeling like she was jumping and trying to stay in the air, and landed on two sneaker-covered feet next to her sister. She didn't pause before breaking into a run.

"Whata we do now?" she asked before her sister could take the time to yell at her for transforming before she was supposed to.

She didn't respond right away, but instead stared ahead with frantic blue eyes as they ran. She looked like she was choking a little bit for some reason. Those guys were coming pretty fast behind them and there wasn't a whole lot of the warehouse left for them to run through. Little flashes of orange light kept snapping at their ankles, stinging a bit and drawing crimson from her exposed skin.

"I..." she gasped, out of breath from running so long and starting to fall behind her sister. "I have no idea."

So they just kept running, their feet eventually falling into step beside each other, until they reached the back of the warehouse and decided to hide behind some leftover boxes until the rats came to find them.

* * *

><p>He watched them as they ran straight through the old warehouse, their footsteps echoing loudly off the concrete walls. They'd entered through a back door, but he was watching them from an enormous open door designed for a truck to attach itself to. The walls were grimy under his hands as he hid up against them. His hands twitched a bit, desiring very much to pull away from the filth.<p>

They were completely different from who he'd seen earlier that day, all their confidence gone. They were just running and running, a fairly long way in fact, and didn't seem to have any plan abut how to deal with the five men trailing them.

Of course, those men were most certainly not ordinary. Two of them were weapons, most of their souls were stained with insanity, and one of the appeared to be on the road to becoming a kishin. He'd secretly been hoping this whole time that they would fight them, _(because he didn't really feel like fighting anyone) _just so he could see what sort of skill they had, but it appeared that that wasn't going to happen.

How disappointing.

He sighed as they ran behind two pathetic cardboard crates in a frenzy, the older one changing into a pistol and landing in her younger sister's hands. That screeching laugh came to a boil in his mind again, not at all fitting the quite terrified looking girl crouched behind some boxes.

Those men were getting pretty close to them, he saw, the stench of their festering souls reaching his reluctant senses. Really, did no one ever clean anything anymore? He thought he might be sick from the way they smelled. But those two were really all he could focus on.

It would be so perfect. _They_ would be so perfect. This was the most fantastic thing he could've hoped for. He never at all thought he'd truly find a pair of identical weapons. This was so great. They were so perfect. They would make _him _perfect. They would make him balanced. They would make him symmetrical.

But they were also people and they had to accept first. Weapons were not objects. He just prayed that they would. Of course, they also needed to not die within the next five minutes, and considering those men had found them in their _(stupid as all hell) _hiding spot, he should probably do something.

* * *

><p>Liz was clutched tightly in her sister's hands and couldn't breathe as those twelve men loomed over her, all of them faceless and worthless with eyes stained red with alcohol and who knows what else. All of them looked just like any other asshole in this city. They weren't special. They weren't anything at all. Yet, they were about to end them.<p>

How could she just be sitting here in the grip of her sister, though. She felt sick, panicky. She didn't know how to help. Patty was pressed up in a corner now, a black handgun against her temple, a knife at her throat, and a filthy, worthless rat in her face. She should do something, anything.

"Well, what are you gonna do now, little girls?" one of them breathed in smoking, rotting breath. "You're the Thompson sisters ain't ya? You're the, the... What do they called you?"

He laughed a low, dumb laugh and all the rest joined in, louder and louder. "The Devils of Brooklyn, right? That's who you is?" he said mockingly, his teeth dirty and yellowed like that rat he was.

"Yeah, that's who they are."

Liz could feel her sister's fury welling up, ready to burst, as they just kept laughing.

She felt Patty pull the trigger then, her soul-wavelength shooting through her like lightning and into one of the men's chests, the one with the knife. He stumbled backwards and into one of the men behind him, falling and pushing both of them over. They nearly knocked over a third man, but fell sideways to the floor before it could happen.

"You little cunts," the one with the gun hissed, pressing himself further against her sister and grabbing her wrist and pulling it skywards. Liz sat with Patty's fingers wrapped tightly around her, pointed toward the ceiling, barely even breathing.

"Just shoot 'em, awready," the black gun urged.

Why was this happening? Why was this the end? Why was this their life?

"Lizzie, just stay here with Patty for a while."

Why did they live this way? Why was it going to end with a shot to the head?

"Mommy will be right back."

Why was he hesitating?

"Wait, don't just waste, 'em. At least keep the older one."

Why was this happening?

She felt one of their fat, grubby hands wrap around her barrel, tugging her away from her sister.

Why was this their fate?

There was yelling, there was prying. Her sister wouldn't let go and she prayed she never would. She'd forgotten how to turn back to normal.

Why was this their life?

"Mommy will be right back."

Her sister's fingers were getting loose. Oh god, please keep them closed. Please. How did she turn back? How did she fix this? Why did they live like this?

"Let the fuck go!"

Because Mommy had told them to.

She couldn't feel her sister's fingers anymore. She couldn't feel her wavelength anymore. She couldn't feel anything. She was falling. Then she clattered to floor.

She could see, across the floor, the man with the gun crashing into a pile of boxes, the cardboard collapsing over him. There was a blur of black and white and another one of the men fell into himself and slipped to the floor.

The entire group was shouting and screaming, more than ten feet away from them now, sounding so confused and terrified. One by one, they fell to the floor and a heap was beginning to form. In between each of their falls, though, she saw someone who seemed strangely familiar. He seemed so small and thin, though, and naive in his black suit. How could he be doing all this? There must be someone else she couldn't see.

She felt Patty pick her up again suddenly and she could see, in the light streaming in from the moon and street lights outside, this kid, this scrawny little kid in a fancy black suit and shiny black shoes, jump an impossible number of feet into the air and come back down with his foot bashing squarely into the skull of one of the rats.

The rat was pushed down and into the concrete floor, unconscious immediately. The last man, holding a knife that she did not believe was a demon-weapon, attempted to run up behind the boy. However, he whirled around perfectly in time and shoved his foot directly into his jaw.

The rat stumbled backwards, but somehow did not fall. The boy seemed to disappear suddenly in a smear of inky black and then reappeared behind this man, his eyes rolled back in his head, and then with his two hands clutched neatly together, he slammed down on his neck. The man fell into the pile, neatly and precisely, and he was done.

This boy... had just knocked out approximately twelve men who undoubtedly had had experience in some sort of fighting. And, if her memory was correct, they'd tried to mug him that day.

He looked satisfied with his work, standing behind that pile. He dusted himself off like the smug bastard he was and then, a strangely kind smile on his face, he walked over the pile of unconscious men, one of them not quite incapacitated enough to keep himself from groaning when he stepped on his face.

What the fuck was with this kid?

She wasn't sure yet if she trusted that smile of his and, according to her grip, neither did Patty. His hands were folded neatly where they could see them, but she still wasn't sure. This sort of thing was most certainly not normal.

His skin was pale as bone and the light of the moon glinted off his golden eyes. The way he walked, even over those bodies, was precise and elegant and there was a ghost-like charm in that smile. His hair was made of pure black silk, streaked with three horizontal stripes that stopped perfectly in the middle of his forehead. In this light, now, he almost didn't seem human.

"Now that that is taken care of," he sighed. "I would like to ask something of the two of you."

The two sisters didn't move. Liz, though, remembered how to transform again and readied herself for anything this kid tried to do.

"You see," he started. "I come from Death City. Originally, I was meant to arrest the two of you, however, I'd like to offer an alternative solution."

They waited.

"You see," he continued. "I am a reaper and would like the two of you to be my left and right hands."

Liz's heart skipped a beat and she transformed immediately, jumping out in front of Patty. If he really was a reaper, then...

He was one of the richest people on Earth.

* * *

><p>His heart fluttered as he anticipated their answer. The older one, he believed she was Elizabeth, gave him a wide eyed look before grabbing the younger one, Patricia he believed, and taking her into the corner to whisper with her furiously. There was an excited flavor in their whispering, though. He wished he could hear them better.<p>

His hands fidgeted around the skull rings on his fingers as he waited. He silently wished that they were twins in human form as well, but if this was the closest thing he'd get to identical weapons, then so be it. But they weren't Objects. They were people.

Why did he have to remind himself of that?

As they continued their feverish whispering, his mind wandered to the horrible mess this place was. The boxes that were here were in complete disarray and there was garbage everywhere. Really, and it was in such an inconsistent manner. It was just scattered, all in broken pieces and in the most random of random spots. There were cigarette butts everywhere and the floor was filled with cracks. It was awful. Absolutely awful.

Maybe he should clean it. No, not maybe. He absolutely _must _clean it. Now. Starting with the boxes.

Before he could really even contemplate his actions, his hands were on the now flattened cardboard. It was sodden and moldy, enough to make him slightly sick, but they needed to be neatened. He folded them so that they were all the same, kicking in the bottoms of any that were still functional as boxes, and stacked them into a neat pile.

"What the hell are you doing?"

He paused in his actions, cardboard between his fingers and looked at the two girls.

"Fixing things," he said simply. Then he thought about it a second longer and dropped the cardboard. "Nothing at all. What have you decided?"

"Um... well... What's your name first of all? And just... where is Death City? And why do you want _us_?" Elizabeth asked, an angry twitch in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he apologized for not introducing himself properly. "My name is Death the Kid, the current Grim Reaper is my father, and Death City is in the Nevada dessert." He was shocked that they, especially being weapons, had never heard of the place. Most weapons dreamed of going there the moment they learned they could transform.

"As for why I'd like you two to be my weapons," he continued. "You two are absolutely perfect and are some of the most beautiful weapons I've ever seen and I would hate to see you wasted on the streets." _(and they wont make him throw up or get a nosebleed) _

* * *

><p>"Sis, he says we're beautiful," Patty whispered happily.<p>

"Shut up. We're used to hearing that. Don't be so happy," Liz hissed back, though her confused eyes were still on the apparent 'reaper' before her. There was something different about the way he said that, though, that for once did not immediately translate "beautiful" into "sexy". Perhaps it was just because he was a kid, though.

Reapers were rich, though. It didn't matter. All she could think about was everything she could do with that money. All the clothes she could buy, all the delicious food she could eat... And Patty would have some place warm and comfortable to sleep at night.

There was always the possibility he was lying, of course, and was going to take them somewhere horrible. This could always be a trick, but...

No one that wasn't a reaper could fight like that, or have eyes like those, or have skin as milky white and flawless as that. He most certainly didn't appear to be anything other than a reaper.

He was Death the Kid, the son of Death himself, a god, an omniscient prince of ravens. He had all the money and the power in the world, more than he'd ever deserve, and if they went with him they could have it all. She would squeeze him and squeeze him until he was dry as bone.

"Sis, say something..." her sister demanded.

Only one word came to her mind that should could not keep from spouting from her mouth. She whirled her sister around and whispered excitedly in her ear; "Patty, we're Cinderellas."

* * *

><p>A smile wider than the moon's peeled back her face, exposing all of her teeth and a tiny, squealing, laugh rushed through her throat. She tried to quiet herself, though, as her sister shushed her. Little squeaking noises still managed to force themselves out her throat though as her sister dragged her further away from the little reaper boy with his ghostly skin.<p>

Her arm was draped protectively and lovingly around her scrawny shoulders as she whispered in her ear. "Just play nice for a little while Patty." was all she said.

She tightened her stomach as her skin began to crawl and danced on the balls of her feet. She wrapped her arms tightly around her ribcage as they walked back to the little reaper. This was the best thing that could've ever happened to them. They were going to get so much stuff from this stupid little kid. It was gonna be so perfect.

How long would it take, though?

She danced and danced in her beautiful, crawling skin and rotting sneakers.

* * *

><p>"So, would you like to come?" he asked, clasping his hands together hopefully.<p>

"Yes, of course," Elizabeth answered, an odd smile on her face. He ignored it, though.

"Good," he said, satisfied. "Then come along. We need to get going immediately. If you have any belongings you'd like, we can go get them, but other than that, I'd like to leave as quickly as possible." _(though he doubted they had anything) _

"Right," she said, stepping toward him with her sister following close behind, smiling widely.

He walked out of this disgusting warehouse, finally, and into the slightly less revolting streets. The pile of rats would have to be taken care of at some point, though. He supposed he should call an ambulance since all of them probably had concussions. He could do that after he reported to his father, though. He would have to use a pay-phone for that sort of thing, anyway, and he was extremely wary about touching one.

But they had decided to go with him. This was fantastic, a blessing. _(though it was base entirely on material things) _He never would've thought that this would happen and he knew very well that neither did they.

It was odd also, that something born of material desires would evolve into a genuine relationship.

* * *

><p><em>AN: And they all lived symmetrically ever after! The End! :D_

_Um... anyway... I've been thinking a lot about how Liz and Patty grew up and would like to write a one-shot about it. And being that it was requested of me that I write a story about Kid's childhood as well, I figured I'd combine them together into one. So that'll be up soon. However, before that happens, I have a fic I'm working on about Liz being sick which should be funny. I need some humor to break up the angst..._

_I wanted to do something for Liz and Patty, though, because I feel like no one ever really writes anything about their situation. I see lots of angst fics about Kid and his issues with his dad and everything, but... Honestly, if real people grew up the way they did, I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't be able to function properly. Or at least, that's what my sister says. My older sister who is becoming a psychologist and insists on ruining everything for me with her damn psychology._

_Logic ruins everything. _


	16. Of Laryngitis and Hand Sanitizer

_A/N: And now Liz has a sick. Mayhaps I should do one for Patty too to make it even. Also, if SoulEater didn't have a tendency to be ridiculous, I'd say this was crack. But I feel that with the seriousness of the past few stories, I've lost a bit of why I love SE._

_This story though... doesn't really revolve that much around Liz being sick, unfortunately. I kind of lost track of what i was doing and ended up being more of a "Kid and Patty's adventures in Walmart" type thing_

_Also, Kid is starting to remind me of my dad... It's really weirding me out... a lot... _

_I don't own SoulEater_

* * *

><p>"Patty, I'm not wearing the nurse outfit."<p>

Was it unfortunate that this was a fairly normal sort of thing for Liz to hear coming from her meister's mouth? Of course, it was also quite predictable. Her and her sister had always dressed up in costumes together. It was something they did to get to get themselves more into what they were doing. Kid, though...

She had to laugh.

But then of course, that made her cough. Which in turn made Kid wince and snap.

"Please don't cough on me," he said through the medical mask strapped over his face. No, this was not part of the nurse costume.

"Because I can help it," Liz replied sarcastically.

"I'm just asking you to attempt to not get me sick too..." he sighed. "And Patty, I said I'm not wearing it!" he hissed as the girl discreetly slipped the hanger over his head so that the puffy white nurse dress hung over his chest.

The girl merely giggled mischievously as he slipped it off and handed it back to her.

"It's pretty much impossible for you to get sick anyway, so I don't get why you're so worried about it," she said, her voice pitched and rough. She hoped this argument wouldn't last much longer. It hurt far too much to talk.

"But I _did _get sick," he said with wide, slightly twitching eyes. "And it was _disgusting._"

"And what are the odds of that happening again?" she sighed.

"I don't know, but I'd rather not take any chances," he said, this story backed up easily by the white latex gloves shielding his hands. "I just don't ever want to throw up again if I can help it."

"You puke all the time," Patty stated, hanging the dress Kid refused to wear back up in Liz's closet. It wasn't like it'd fit him anyway.

"Can we just get ba.. to the fa..t that I ..eep loos..ng my voi-s" she said, voice cracking horribly. Her voice kept fading in and out of a distorted whisper, certain letters getting lost in her throat.

"Yes, sorry," he apologized. "Now, um, you probably have a fever, but I can't tell since that would involve touching you, so Patty, you can check."

"O-h y..ah," Liz glared at him harshly, though her voice was nearly gone. It kept cycling, going back and forth between being perfectly fine and not there at all. "Just s...rafi..ce my li...le si...ster, you di..." The insult didn't make it out of her throat.

"Liz, really, you shouldn't be trying to shout," Kid said simply. "Now, I will go look for cold medicine, though I'm pretty sure we don't have any being that I've never needed it before, and the only cold medicine we had, Patty bought to get high and was thrown out shortly afterward."

Patty smiled sheepishly and walked over to her sister, who was sitting up in her bed, as Kid left the room. Liz crossed her arms and glared at the door while her sister pressed her hand to her forehead.

"Um..." she started awkwardly. "How do you know if someone has a fever?"

Oh, Patty was so blonde. "Does my fo..re...eh... fe..el ..otte...r tha...n yo..r ...and?" she asked rhetorically.

"I have no idea what you're saying," she said honestly.

Liz sighed. "Does my fo..re...hhhead feel hhhott...r than y..our hha..nd," she forced out of her throat.

"Uh... kinda... maybe... I dunno," she squirmed. "You sorta do... but, I dunno..."

Liz sighed. "Go ge..t a therm..." and then she mouthed the rest of the words because no voice could get out of her throat. She attempted to clear her throat and speak again, no proper sound would come out.

Frantically, she pushed herself up into a sitting position in her bed and pulled open the drawer of her nightstand. Patty took her hand away and waited while her sister searched frustratedly for a pen and paper. Eventually, she came up with an old pen and a notepad she'd never used.

She began to write, but the pen only left a blank, inkless dent in the paper. Almost angrily, she scribbled a large spiral on the paper until the ink began to run again. When she finally got the pen to work, she wrote quickly, in large, rounded handwriting; "Just get a thermometer. Then convince Kid to not be an ass."

"Okay!" Patty accepted, and then ran out of her room, leaving her alone. As soon as the door was shut, she fell back into her pillows. She didn't particularly feel that awful, other than her lack of vocal capabilities and coughing spells that had plagued her since, according to Kid, the middle of the night. Of course, having an excuse to lay in bed all day was never a bad thing.

She hoped, though, that Kid would calm the hell down and quit being a neurotic germaphobe. It had been cute at first, but now it was just annoying.

She sighed, and hoped her voice would return soon. Writing everything down would just be troublesome.

Her bedroom door flew open then, and the mattress sank deep down on either side of her, there as well was a sudden weight on her legs. Her sister was in her face, panting from running, and commanded her immediately to "Open yer mouth!" with a thermometer at the ready.

This... This could not be more awkward.

No. Wait. She heard, from the door, the awkward little laugh that she knew came only from her meister's throat. Immediately, her eyes, harsh and angry, drove themselves through him like knives.

Now. Was not. The time. For him. To be. Perverted.

For once, he obeyed her and straightened his mask-covered face and back immediately.

Liz took the thermometer from her sister's fingers, turned it on, and placed it in her mouth herself. Patty then slipped off the bed and back onto the floor.

Kid was standing at the foot of her bed, where he insisted he stay for reasons she believed stemmed from his new found hatred of illness, with his hands neatly folded behind his back. "As I suspected, we don't have any cold medicine or anything," he said. "So I'm going to go buy some and hope that you've both matured enough to not abuse it."

His eyes were on Patty more than Liz, as she'd been the one with the drug problem when they'd first moved in. Surprisingly, Liz hadn't been quite as bad about it. She'd just had her cigarettes.

Patty glared back at him in response. "I'm not gonna do anything!"

"Okay, okay. I know," he said. "Anyway, I'm going to the store. I'll be back."

"I'll come with you!" Patty offered.

"No, that's fine. You should stay here," he insisted.

"But someone has to make sure you don't die," she explained, crossing her arms. Liz couldn't help but internally agree with her.

"But-"

"Imma come with you. Liz'll be fine," she insisted.

"I-"

But then the girl's hands were pressed against his back, spinning him around and pushing out the door.

"We'll be back later, sis! Imma make sure he doesn't do anything stupid? Kay, bye!" Patty called as she shoved their meister out the door and then slammed it shut behind her.

She wished she had the voice to tell her to take the nurse outfit off first.

She also was positive that neither of them were going to come back any time soon, as they were the two most hopelessly distracted people she knew. In fact, she was positive that if Kid and Patty were to go on a mission without her, minus Kid's inability to hold just one of them, they wouldn't come back home alive. Between Kid's inability to refocus his attention on the situation once symmetry was introduced and Patty's mind's tendency to drift from world to world, they were quite unbalanced together. Sure, Patty was good at regaining Kid's attention, but that was only if she stopped laughing long enough to remember to do so.

No, they probably wouldn't be back until the evening.

It was nine in the morning.

* * *

><p>After enduring the awkwardness of two people riding on one skateboard while one was in a t-shirt, jeans, and a surgical mask he'd forgotten to take off and the other was in an enormously puffy nurse costume, Kid and Patty arrived at Death Mart. As they hovered for a moment above the concrete outside the front doors, half of the people stared and the other half deliberately chose to ignore them. The wheels of the skateboard flipped into a normal position and then it disappeared into Kid's hand in a flurry of skulls and black lightning.<p>

"Okay, all we need is cold medicine," Kid said as the automatic doors swung open for them and the cool, conditioned air of the supermarket washed over them. It was a wonderful change from the baking heat of Death City. "Don't buy anything else."

"I wont," Patty said, crossing her arms in irritation at his condescendence. She also fought the urge to dig through her pockets, oh, she loved this dress from having pockets, for a quarter and buy some useless little thing from the vending machines that lined the windows.

As they walked through the next set of doors and into the store, though, their task suddenly seemed much much harder than it truly was. All they needed to do was go to the store, get cough medicine, and walk back out. Yes. That was all they needed to do.

But there was just so much cool stuff here and so much asymmetry... And no Liz...

* * *

><p>Water poured from the sink and into the teapot, sloshing and weighing her hand down little by little. When it was full, she replaced the lid and sat it on the stove's burner with a <em>clank <em>and turned the knob to high. It would probably be nice to have the two out of the house for a while. Having the mansion to herself would be peaceful, and peace was something she desperately needed.

A day without Kid having a panic attack or Patty making a mess would be nice for a change. Or well, a day where she wouldn't have to deal with his anxiety or her messes would be nice. They were bound to happen anyway. It was just the way they operated.

She was half expecting Kid to burst through the front door at any moment claiming that he'd forgotten to fix one of the paintings or something.

As the swirling burner began to heat and turn red, she began to seriously consider it happening very soon. Yes, any minute now and he'd be running through that door in a panic.

But he didn't and she sighed. Today would be an easy day, though her head was starting to ache and she was feeling a bit dizzy. The tea would help, though. Echinacea was good for colds and things like that, she'd hear somewhere. She'd also heard it was absolutely disgusting.

However, considering she probably wouldn't be getting any medicine until much later, she figured it would be good for a start.

* * *

><p>"Since Liz is sick, we should get more hand sanitizer."<p>

"I thought you said we were only getting cold medicine."

"Yes, but then I remembered how necescarry this is."

"You're breaking your own rule."

"It's still relevant, though, so it's not that bad."

"Can I get this then?"

"Why do you need that?"

"It's adorable! Lookatit!"

"No."

"Then why do you get hand sanitizer?"

"Because hand sanitizer is not a toy."

"For you, it may as well be."

"You're not getting it, Patty."

"You suck."

"You swallow."

And then Patty was sent into a horrible fit of giggles in pride of her meister for finally learning the proper comeback to such a statement that she'd been trying to teach him for several weeks. Then she quit it and brought herself back to the problem at hand.

"You know, I'm actually older than you. Shouldn't I be in charge?"

"You tried to put me in a nurse costume today."

"Your face."

"We need to just go get cold medicine."

"We should also get this."

It was the most epically fluffy stuffed elephant either of them had ever seen. She needed this.

"No, Patty."

"Why?"

"Because we don't need it."

"Don't we have hand sanitizer at home?"

"We need more."

"You're so stupid."

The two then proceeded to walk through the store, Kid with a surgical mask still over his face, latex gloves still creating a second skin on his hands, the largest bottle of hand sanitizer they sold, and looking incredibly nonchalant about it while Patty incessantly shoved the stuffed elephant in his face.

* * *

><p>Liz sat on the couch in the TV room in her fluffiest bathrobe and pajamas with a mug of tea in her hand. She sunk into the pillows, sipping from the mug a few times before placing it on the coffee table, on a coaster so Kid wouldn't kill her later, and turned on the television.<p>

It was still the morning so the only thing on was _Say Yes to the Dress_, but she was perfectly fine with that. She could watch it without Kid complaining about the asymmetry if most of the dresses.

There were certain things that people just didn't talk about outside of their house. For Kid, this involved the fact that Liz had brainwashed him into liking girly television. Patty was hopeless in this situation as she really only liked cartoons and video games. Kid had become her pseudo little sister when Patty was unwilling.

Kid, also, had little interest in video games. He shot things on a weekly basis. He didn't need to pretend. There was also the problem of most of the games they had being first-person shooters, which usually only allowed you to carry one gun at a time.

Though, the one odd thing that had come out of these video games was the fact that once Patty had started playing Fallout, which was filled with music from the 40's, Kid made the decision to show them his collection of swing and jazz music. Liz had had no problem with this, as it was actually one of her favorite kinds of music.

This gave them another thing people didn't talk about outside of their house, and that was that the three of them had unintentionally memorized "Civilization" by Danny Kane and the Andrew Sisters and sang it at random moments during the day. No one could know about this, as BlackStar would probably eat Kid alive if he ever heard him singing such a ridiculous song.

Oh, the things they did when people weren't watching. Sometimes, though, there were things that Kid did when people _were_ watching that were much much worse.

* * *

><p>Kid walked through the aisles of the store, straightening anything and everything on the shelves so that it's label was facing the front and so that everything was the same distance from the edge. The employees definitely didn't mind him doing this, however he was becoming a problem.<p>

Despite the order Kid was creating, customers really wanted to be able to just take the cereal off the shelf without him giving them a death glare. And being that every time something was removed from one of the shelves just about the entire row needed fixing, Kid was becoming a nuisance.

What was more, Patty thought it was absolutely hilarious and insisted on unfixing everything he fixed. Kid hadn't quite caught on yet.

All that was running through his mind at the moment was that the cereal boxes were crooked and needed to be fixed as he tapped them carefully into place. He wasn't really even focusing on which ones he was fixing. His eyes were on minute details rather then the big picture, so he didn't notice that he'd been fixing and refixing the same twelve boxes of Cheerios for the past five minutes.

It had actually been about twenty minutes, but again, he wasn't paying attention.

He just needed to fix these boxes. Then everything would be fine. Then of course, he'd have to move onto the next aisle which he believed had bags of chips in it. Those would be harder to fix. They would take much longer to get straight since they were not very balanced to begin with.

Maybe he would start with the jars of salsa and fake cheese and pickles that were also in that aisle. That would be easier. Maybe, though, he should just get the hard part over with first. Of course, in order to get there, he had to finish this aisle and someone always seemed to mess up the boxes just as he was almost done.

He stepped back away to view his progress and noticed, finally, that a blonde girl in a puffy white dress was shifting the boxes at the other end.

"Patty!" he screamed as he rushed over to fix the box again with delicate and precise gloved fingers. She just giggled manically as she clutched a stuffed elephant and little plastic cat sealed in a display box.

Several minutes later Kid had finally finished with the cereal aisle and moved onto the next.

The two continued in this way for quite a long time, though they could not identify quite how long. It was somewhere, though, between thirty minutes and six hours. The whole time, Patty accumulated more and more toys that Kid was no longer focused enough to object about. Both of them had completely forgotten just what they'd gone to the store for in the first place.

At some point, though, the endless fixing of items that would never stay fixed was getting to the reaper and stress was building inside his head. It pinned his eyes wide open and every once in a while he would let out a small whine in an attempt to alleviate his panic.

Patty also was finding his compulsions less and less funny as the hours dragged on, being that she sort of wanted to go home. They'd been here all day and there were other things she would rather be doing besides watching Kid manically straighten each and every item in the store.

Eventually, though, Kid's motivation dwindled and was overwhelmed by the weight of his anxiety which drastically slowed his movements. It weighed down his head and made it ache as well and made his breathing hitch. After only a few attempts at fixing the little plastic and cardboard boxes encasing My Little Ponies, he leaned his head into the metal shelf, hugged his hand sanitizer to his chest, closed his eyes, and groaned in utter frustration.

"Can we go home now? I don't wanna walk around this store no more," Patty whined, leaning against the shelf next to him with a basket full of useless plastic things.

However, before Kid could say anything, thick, crimson blood spurted from his mouth, spattering all over the My little Ponies. Then he fell backwards onto the dirty tiled floor, completely and utterly unconscious.

* * *

><p>"We're back!" Patty sang into the front hall as she walked into the Gallows Mansion, though she was panting and tired from having to drag Kid all the way across the city by herself. He was surprisingly heavy.<p>

Liz, unsurprisingly, did not respond, so she just straightened him in her arms and trudged through the maze of hallways until she found the tv room. Liz was asleep on the couch, she noticed, with _Say Yes to the Dress _on the television and an empty mug and ramen cup on the coffee table.

Patty dropped Kid on the couch beside her, letting him flop into whatever position his limp skeleton chose to form. Then she sat down in between them. The movement got Liz to stir and her eyes fluttered.

After a few moments she yawned and cleared her throat forcefully. "You're back," she said, stretching. She was glad to find that, though it was still hoarse, her voice was working. "How was shopping?"

"Kid died so we didn't get anything," Patty sighed, sinking into the back of the couch. "Except for the hand sanitizer, 'cause I couldn't get him to let go of it."

Liz glanced over to see Kid unconscious with blood dripping from his lips whilst hugging an enormous jug of hand sanitizer like a teddybear. She shrugged.

"Wasn't expecting anything else to happen."

* * *

><p><em>AN: This could be considered a sequel to Kid's sickfic, but I think that without reading that one you'd still get that he was sick once and now he's germaphobic forever. _

_So uh... Yeah... That was fun to write. xD_


	17. Witch Hunt, Witch Hunt, Burn and Twirl

_A/N: Fixed it. Hopefully it's less horrendous now. _

_I don't own SoulEater _

* * *

><p>They were on a witch hunt, deep in a rotting wound that had been festering and bleeding for far too long. It had once been a home, he supposed, but it was now just so unrecognizable that that must have been an impossible number of lifetimes ago. No one could possibly live here, not anymore. It decayed like newspaper burning without fire, the edges blackening and crumbling, the recognizable areas shrinking.<p>

The walls sat crumbling into dust that stung his lungs, covered with paint that curled and flaked like peeling scabs. The door hung on only one of its hinges, bleached white shadows where the metal plates once were. The floor, ancient wood dug into with deep scratches plowed up by manic fingernails, creaked sickly beneath his shined black shoes.

His fingers curled closer to the triggers of his pistols, wrapping around them defensively, as his cautious steps crept passed the window. A curtain rod hung loosely from the wall, holding a once pink plaid curtain suspended delicately and moth-eaten and adorned with stains of dirt and fluids in front of hastily taped up newspaper that completely covered the glass.

He swallowed in an attempt to cool the burning in his throat from the detrimental air. The thick sent of decomposition and a cocktail of unnamable chemicals swam around his head. It was vile, absolutely vile, and he more than once thought he'd be sick. He found himself breathing as little as possible, holding his breath for several seconds before again releasing it into the dead room.

He squirmed inside of himself, his stomach sucking itself in as his throat closed up. Little creeping things, shiny and brown, crawled over and over themselves beneath the fridge as he turned his head to look into the kitchen. Dripping, creeping, stains grew up the off-white plastic thing like intrusive vines.

He closed his eyes and looked away, twisting his neck and swallowing again, but they and the filth were still there, still everywhere, still surrounding him, still hanging in the air, crawling over his skin, over his hands, his chest, his feet, his face, his face, his face with their tiny, inching, filthy, legs.

It clawed at him and gripped him tightly with it's grubby, unclean, hands, unwanted, unneeded, undesired, unpleasant. His fingers twisted over the smooth, clean, metal of the two guns, fidgeting frenetically.

He took another couple of steps, the floor screeching and screaming and telling him that, no, no, no, he should not be here. But he had to be. This witch needed to be taken care of. She'd done too much for too long. This had to be done and it was his duty to do it, regardless of the condition of her location. He had to.

He took a deep breath of foul air and opened his eyes again, honey-golden and light-glazen beneath the dim twilight. "The dirt isn't going to hurt you." It was Liz's voice, but it was so gargled, so foggy. Was she under water?

He peered only at the floor as it protested each of his steps, and eventually his gaze was locked entirely on his own shows, italian leather and so crisply, shiningly, pristine. He was fine. He was fine.

Kid could feel souls glowing softly beneath the floorboards. They too were sick, waning and almost whimpering. There were more as well upstairs, crumpled and dying. There were so many on this floor as well. He counted about twenty of them in all, though he couldn't tell how many of them were still attached to bodies.

Oh this house was just sick sick sick.

There were more important things here besides the dirt. There were far worse things he needed to focus on fixing. He couldn't just dwell on the mess.

He looked away from his feet to look in the direction of the souls on this floor. He'd have to go into the kitchen, as they appeared to be in the fridge. These ones were most certainly not alive.

He didn't look at the roaches, at the ants, at the rotting food or at the rats nesting safely in the cupboards. He didn't look at the mold or at the water stains or at the long smear of crimson energetically painted onto the tiles. He didn't look at the dirt in the crevices laced with knots of old dead hair. It simply wasn't there. It wasn't near him. He wasn't breathing it. He wasn't touching it.

There were no roaches or ants or hair on the floor, or on his feet or his hands or or his milky skin or his chest or his face, his face, or in his mouth his mouth his mouth _his mouth. _

Bile welled up in his throat and his stomach reeled. He was going to be sick. He was going to be _sick_.

"Focus. It's not going to hurt you, just focus."

He inhaled. There wasn't actually anything touching him. Why was he imagining such things? It certainly wasn't making it any better. The more he shoved the thoughts away, though, the stronger they became.

He was going to be sick. He was going to be sick.

"Calm down."

Her voice was soft, soft as feathers, and as incoherent as radio static.

The souls. The souls. He'd have to open the fridge to get them. He'd have to...

He breathed in the putrid air and stepped toward the fridge. It was covered in stains of all colors from gold to red and crawling with roaches. What if they were on his hands on his face what if, but they weren't, but if they were in his mouth, though they most certainly weren't, but if they were, though they weren't, but if they were in his mouth his mouth his mouth!

"It's fine, it's fine. Don't worry."

He reached out one of his his hands, the pistol hanging on his pinky with the rest of his hand open. His itching and protesting fingers of perfectly clean porcelain slowly wrapped themselves around the handle. He pulled it open and no light came on as the fridge was most certainly off, however, from it's inside came the soft blue glow of souls plucked prematurely from their flesh.

He sighed and his shoulders fell. He momentarily forgot the mess as a far stronger instinct enveloped him. He stuck both of the pistols into his holsters as he bit his lip. His empty hand twisted into a few different positions in a practiced order until his hand was left palm open.

The little blue orbs smoothly flowed into a luminescent cloud that seeped softly into his skin. When he had a hold of all of them, he closed the fridge door quietly and pulled Liz and Patty out of their holsters. He gripped them tightly and turned away, ignoring all of the dirt and all of the insects to the best of his abilities.

There were a few more souls in the basement. There was a possibility that those ones were still encased in bodies, but it wasn't very likely. Even though this witch had in fact been experimenting on live test subjects, there was very little possibility that they'd survived the atrocities.

The door, in the short space between the kitchen and the living room, seemed to have once been blue. The paint was ravaged by neglect now, and stained with little dots of red. The most discouraging factor, however, was that the handle was gone, no doubt purposely removed.

Kid sighed, but was not unfamiliar with what to do in this situation.

He pressed Patty into the tiny corner between the door and the wall just next to the hole left by the missing handle. He pulled the trigger, shoving a loud, pink, blast from her barrel that exploded into the wood, taring splinters from the wall and door and shattering the silence into a million pieces.

He froze, the bang still ringing through his ears. The door swung open before him, hitting the wall of the stairwell with another earsplitting bang. He stood there waiting, alert and ready to fight, incase anyone heard.

There was scrambling upstairs, right above his head. Frantic feet flitted over the floor for just a few seconds until an unnatural stillness overwhelmed the entire house. Something was up there... Something was... But that was right around where those two souls were.

Minutes passed where he did not think or move, his muscle stiff and his hands clutching the two pistols readily.

He prayed that neither of the two souls up there were a witch using Soul Protect and turned his attention back to the stairs. They were made of old gray wood that squeaked ever so slightly as his feet slowly crept down them. The air cooled as he carefully descended and the strong smell of must and chemicals and the sick scent of untimely death encapsulated him.

His feet laid down on the cold concrete floor cautiously. He snuck through the basement on light feet, weaving around the dusty and grimy and most likely broken objects that littered the place in boxes and on shelves and on tables. Mixed into these random, left, and useless things, though, were all sorts of equipment that had obviously been used quite recently.

It was all so disorderly, so inconsistent, so filthy, so grimy. If he could just...

But he didn't need to. He really didn't. It was unimportant, it truly was.

All sorts of test tubes and chemicals and ingredients and machines and books of witchcraft, of black magic, and of phasmology mixed into the clutter but was not camouflaged. There were so many vials of red liquid too, undoubtably stolen from the veins of her test subjects. He wondered just what in the world this witch was studying.

If it were just a bit more orderly...

The souls, though, were what he was worried about. He could see them, weak and disturbed, in her peripheral vision. They were not attached to any bodies, not anymore at least.

In a corner, caked in dust, they glowed from behind a curtain of rotting blankets with holes chewed into them by so many insects. The unfortunately familiar scent of biotic decay swarmed his senses. He again placed the two pistols in his holsters.

His fingers delicately gripped the blanket, though only the tips were permitted to touch the filthy thing. He pulled it slowly, releasing a thousand dust particles into the air, and revealed two small metal crates built of thin metal bars meant to restrain dogs.

If someone could clean this place...

Cramped inside the crates were mangled and twisted bodies made of nothing more than skin and bone and tangled hair. They had been human once, but not when they died. They'd been demeaned far beyond that. He doubted they'd even been able to function properly when their souls had finally let go. Their death was probably fortunate.

Never the less, he touched the two pistols in his holsters with soft fingers and swallowed again. He performed the same hand signs as previously and then held out his open and ready palm. The two souls disappeared into his skin in a soft blue blur and then he immediately turned away.

He pulled the nylon drawstring bag off his shoulders and pulled it open quickly. There wasn't much inside, so he had no trouble locating a little black digital camera. After he swung the bag back over his shoulder and he pressed the button, the lens unfolded in a flurry of quieted mechanical noises.

He'd been told that the authorities of this town had requested proof of what had occurred here, and had therefore been charged with the task of providing photographic evidence. There was another suspect to these murders, someone who was not a witch and not on his father's To Die list, whose name needed clearing.

In quick flickers of light, the grotesque images were captured on the plastic thing's screen. The basement was illuminated over and over again in white light as each and every bit of evidence was recorded. Once the books, the cages, the bodies, the test tubes, and everything else was taken, he pulled the bag off his back again and put it away.

Maybe he could clean up...

He placed the books inside the bag as well, being that his father would most certainly wish to see them.

There didn't appear to be anything else down here besides a few skittering rats, so he made his way back upstairs and walked into the decaying living room. There were still the two souls upstairs that he needed to take care of, though he was now wondering where this witch was. He wondered when she'd return to this house, or if she was done with everything here and had moved on.

As important as saving these souls was, he truly needed to be disposing of this witch. If she wasn't here, then that was a problem as there were no other leads on her location.

As he ascended the stairs that led to the second floor, he wondered if there was anyone at all in this house that was still alive. He remembered the footsteps from earlier, but they could have been anything, even some sort of animal. Of course, there weren't any animal souls that he could sense.

Maybe there was someone alive up there. Maybe. He shouldn't be hoping, though. It wasn't likely enough for such thoughts.

The floorboards of the upstairs hall creaked and groaned beneath his shoes. Something irrational inside him wondered if the floor might give out, that it might just crack and splinter beneath him and he'd be sent crashing to the floor beneath. The house didn't appear to be truly that decrepit, though.

No matter how scratched and abused the wood was, it would hold. Still, he walked very carefully. Just incase.

The wallpaper was faded and peeling, just like all the paint downstairs, exposing the cracked plaster behind it. All the doors had once been painted white, but the paint seemed to have been clawed off. All the doorknobs were missing here as well, leaving empty holes and defining the closed-offness of the space.

No one could get in or out. Without a handle, it was final. Everything behind those doors was trapped, stuck, unretrievable.

The last two souls were behind a door near the end of the hall. As he stepped slowly toward it, he was perfectly prepared to find nothing living at all. The odds forced him to be.

Kid pressed Liz into the corner between the door and and wall, just like he'd done with Patty. He pulled the trigger, letting the blast swing the door open in a flash of light and energy, taring up splinters. The door smacked into a porcelain sink and the little bits of shredded wood spilt onto cold white tiles.

His eyes trailed over the ivory colored floor, so pure, so smooth, so oddly clean in comparison to the rest of the house. The window was barricaded by boards nailed into the wall, decorated with carvings that could only have been created by the most desperate of fingernails that had scratched and tore until they began to paint it red.

In the bathtub adjacent to the window were the two bodies, pale and bony. The odd thing was, though, he could feel two souls but only see one.

Then he saw one of their ribcages, embossing their skin with sickly grooves, inflate ever so slightly. The skin and bones stretched and morphed with each shaky breath.

One of them was still alive, still holding onto their own soul.

Kid ebbed closer to the tub, his footsteps making absolutely no noise.

The two were curled up together, one girl and one boy. He couldn't tell their ages due to their emaciation, but he figured they were at least in their teens. The boy wasn't moving and his skin was turning a deathly blue. He couldn't see his face as the girl was so protectively clutching his body, pulling him close into her ashen skin.

Her skinny fingers were tipped with rusty scabs and held onto him so delicately, his shoulder in one hand and his softly glowing soul in the other. Her face was hidden behind a tangle of champagne hair that was thick with oil and dirt. These thickly twisting tendrils almost entirely hid her pale blue irises as they glared at him, set in reddened sclera.

Her hair and her eyes struck thoughts into his head he'd rather not have, but these ideas thickened none the less. He clutched the two pistols tighter as he bent down closer to her. What if this was... What if this was...

He swallowed the idea, needing to focus. Personal issues should never be brought into missions under any circumstances. Though he still needed to work on this when his neurosis came into play, he needed nothing else to distract him.

He again placed the two pistols into their holsters, kneeling down and holding out his hand to her. Her skin was nearly as ghostly pale as his own. She shifted away from him, her shoulders tightening.

"Let me hold onto that," he said, his voice ringing through the silence intrusively. "I won't let anything happen to it."

She only continued to stare at him with those pale blue eyes, like gems cut from the sky itself. She tucked the soul closer to her naked chest instead.

Then he remembered where they were.

"Do you speak english?"

Again, she stared at him with nothing more than fright.

He told her again, softly and calmly, to let him hold onto the soul, that he was a reaper and that he'd take good care of it. His french was not fantastic, but he figured it was comprehensible. Most meisters needed to learn multiple languages as their missions could be just about anywhere in the planet. Maka was quite good at italian and far better at french than he was. He himself was more practiced with german. BlackStar didn't feel that such things were necessary, though he knew a bit of japanese from Tsubaki.

This time she seemed more responsive, but no less frightened. Her fingers did not loosen around the little glowing thing, it's cerulean luminescence spilling onto her waxen face.

He asked her again, keeping his voice low and calm.

Slowly, her cracked lips parted and her voice squeaked it's way out of her throat. She told him it was her brother's.

Kid glanced quickly at the body in her arms. He must have only died this morning.

He told her it would be safer if he took it, that it would be taken to where it was supposed to go, that it was his job, that nothing bad would happen to it.

She still seemed reluctant, but there was something in her eyes that seemed to convey that she knew he was right. However, there was still something that didn't trust him at all.

He told her as well that he could get her, and her brother, out of this house.

She still eyed him warily.

He understood that she had every reason not to trust him, however, he really was in a bit of a hurry.

He pleaded again for her to let him take the soul.

His hurry was then only hastened when he heard the mechanical clicking of door mechanisms and the sounds of foot steps from downstairs. His eyes widened and all of his muscles stiffened, as did the girl's.

"Please," he said quickly, his honey-golden eyes portraying the severity of the situation.

At his reaction to the creaking footsteps downstairs, she must've realized he truly was there to help. Or at least, she must've felt that there was at least a slightly stronger chance.

She slowly uncurled her arm and placed the soul into his open palm.

"Thank you."

It bled into his milky skin and disappeared from view, protected for now.

He quickly told her to stay put, that she was to under no circumstances leave this room. She nodded understandingly and he stood up, flicking the pistols from their holsters and twirling them readily.

Kid quickly and quietly fled from the room, swiftly sticking one of the pistols into the hole where the knob should be to pull the door closed. He closed the door slowly, delicately, and made sure that just about as little noise as possible was produced.

It did click, though, ever so slightly.

He turned away from it none the less and headed for the stairs. The witch was just downstairs, just beneath his feet. She had Soul Protect on, but he knew it was her. No one lived in his house, absolutely no one, besides that witch and her captives. Her footsteps were too confident, too knowing.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, he took a step onto the top stair and prayed for it not to creek. There was no doubt he'd be confronting her, but if he could just get the upper hand by staying hidden for a bit longer...

He placed his other foot on the second step. There were twelve steps in this staircase. If he could just make it to the bottom before she noticed, then he could keep her, hopefully, from coming upstairs. He didn't want their fight to harm the girl in the bathroom.

Then of course there was the fact that, if she hadn't already, she would notice his soul quite soon. She would notice the anomaly, possibly believe one of her test subjects had broken free before noticing the Sanzu Lines that encased half of it like ribs.

As he stepped onto the third step, he wondered why she hadn't come to find them already. Liz and Patty's souls as well should be a give away. Three souls, all clustered together and moving as one, was quite noticeable indeed.

He stepped onto the fourth step and recalled that certain witches could only sense souls when their Soul Protect was off, as many were not born with the gift and had learned it through means of magic and phasmology studies.

His foot was placed on the fifth step and he heard her shuffling in the kitchen. He held his breath and knew she'd find the missing souls soon enough.

On the sixth step he remembered that if she could indeed sense souls, she'd be able to feel all the ones he was carrying as well as they flowed inside his skin, not attached to his body in the same way his own was or being absorbed like a weapon would, but still inside him.

On the seventh, he heard the refrigerator door open, that low snap of released suction.

On the eighth, he froze as he heard it close again. Then he hastened himself and quickly and as quietly as he possibly could make himself, fled over the next three steps without a thought.

One more step and then the floor. If he could just make it to the kitchen without her noticing... If he could just make it through the filth, and the dirt, and the mess, and the insects, and the grime, and the stains without her hearing him...

He took a sharp breath into his lungs and then held it, worried she might've heard him breathe.

He heard something coming from the kitchen, something soft and high, a sort of laugh. His hands gripped the two pistols tighter, ready for everything to start in just a few seconds.

He stepped onto the floor and couldn't stop it from creaking beneath his weight.

Then the shield around her soul dissolved and he knew there was no reason to be sneaking any longer. There was a moment of thick, deafening, silence that enveloped his body in adrenaline.

From around the corner where he knew the witch was came a spiral like a drill-bit made of black lighting that plowed through the air and just missed him as he ducked back into the stairwell.

It blew into the wall, taring up dust and concrete chunks. Before she could attack again, he threw his limbs into a battle stance, readily aiming the guns.

He ebbed away from the stairwell, crossing in front of the newspaper covered windows so that he was behind the rotten couch.

Another black spiral shot toward him, drilling through the stagnant air. Again, though, he managed to dodge it and it instead crashed through the window, sending shattered glass out in a cone.

He pressed his body up against the wall as quickly as he could to avoid the spray, but still felt the sting of bits of glass in his skin. He was also quite unfavorably in a corner now.

He could see her shoulder here, though, all wrapped in a black knit sweater. He pulled the triggers immediately, sending two blurring flashes of light toward her.

He heard her hiss when they impacted her arm and immediately sent four more conical spirals shooting in his direction. He dove to the floor, but did not reach the old wood unscathed, one of them skimming across his arms and shearing through his coat and flesh.

His breath came in through his teeth and he gripped Liz and Patty tighter, his knuckles turning white. He pushed himself up hastily, though, and shot at her again and again, pelting her with energetic bits of his soul.

She growled and disappeared behind the kitchen wall, sending more spirals his way as she did so. These one's were much smaller, though, nearly the size of his bullets and were far more numerous. He dove to the floor again, managing to dodge all of them.

He propelled himself upward and forward as they drilled themselves into little burrows in the wall. He flung himself into the kitchen just beside her before she could react and wrapped an arm around her, restraining her and pointing both guns into her face.

She giggled like a child.

"Just what do you think you're doing with all of my souls, little reaper boy?" Her voice was high, but strangely hoarse and thick with a french accent.

Kid merely sneered in response.

She smiled, revealing rotten, yellow, teeth, shining with spit and peered at him with eyes as big and black as a doll's, shimmering like liquid ink.

She jerked in his grip in an attempt to loosen herself, taring them both toward the floor. He did not let go, though, and instead pulled the triggers with full intentions of ending her.

Just as the little pink lights blasted from their barrels, though, her form changed to an enormous spiral that shot out of his arms. It twirled back into the shape of the witch just a few feet in front of him, her stance then changing from that of a ballerina's to one of something much more ferrel, stumbling around in a drunken sway.

She laughed a high-pitched laugh and twirled in an ungraceful yet oddly elegant way, throwing more spirals from the palms of her hands.

Kid shifted around them, though they still clipped his clothes, and threw his foot into her abdomen, tossing her into the counter. She just kept laughing, though, as she slipped onto the floor, her thick black hair falling around her face.

She sent more and more spirals drilling toward him out of her grubby, bandaid-covered, fingers. He couldn't dodge all of them, though, and felt the sharp, twisting, sting of several small ones burrowing, spiraling, digging down into his arm and his leg.

His breath seethed through his teeth as he bit down on his lips, every muscle stiffening beyond usefulness for a second or two. Then he began shooting at her manically, pulling the triggers over and over again and sending blast after blast ringing through the air.

She backed her way out of the kitchen, managing to dodge a good majority of the attacks.

He hissed and kept shooting, trying to perhaps herd her into a corner. She screeched and flipped, sounding absolutely mad, avoiding his attacks only until she became bored.

She jumped toward him, sending a kick toward his face. He dodged it, though, ducking just in time and grabbing her smooth, leather, boot as it came around. He sent her crashing to the floor and managed to get a shot in before she threw more tiny spirals toward him.

He jumped out of the way just in time, his arm and leg already dripping with crimson from her previous attack. He was indeed quite asymmetrical at the moment... No no no. He shouldn't be thinking about that right now, and he most certainly shouldn't attempt to shoot himself to correct such a thing. That'd be insane...

"You could just give them back, you know. We don't have to fight," she said, a smile plastered on her face and her ribs shaking with laughter.

"Like I'd ever allow anyone to keep souls, especially in the filthy conditions you've got here," Kid hissed, shooting at her again and again. "Honestly," he said as she jumped out of the way. "Do you ever clean this place? It's revolting."

She screeched in mirth and sent a large spiral twirling toward him. He jumped to the floor again, slipping neatly underneath it, and quickly pushed himself back up again.

He ran at her and shoved one of the pistols into her stomach, pulled the trigger as he did so, and threw her into the empty fireplace.

She gasped and clutched her abdomen, still laughing as roses bloomed over her hands through her sweater. She pushed herself up, stumbling on shaking limbs. She put a hand on her knee to stabilize herself, leaving a handprint of cherry juice on her stockings.

She examined her hand for a second and Kid's face screwed up in disturbance as she tasted the red liquid on her fingers. She giggled madly and then looked back up at him with her liquidly eyes.

He aimed both pistols at her and shot again. She moved out of the way, though, just in time. Little black spirals danced from her fingertips and drilled through the air, this time one of them making it straight into his abdomen before he could dodge.

"Kid..."

He inhaled sharply, but did not dwell on Liz's concern. Instead he kept shooting at her, furiously sending bullet after bullet of his soul wavelength in her direction.

Showers of energy were pelted at her like electric, pink, rain, ravaging her flesh and finally managing to burn away her body. The shots tore holes in her flesh, producing no more blood and only shadows. She had finally weakened enough to loosen her skin.

Her skin disappeared, and her bones, and her muscles, swirling away into black smoke until all that was left was her ruined purple soul, hovering uselessly without a body to bind it.

Kid stood there shaking with adrenaline and breathing heavily for a moment and waited for his mind to comprehend that it was over.

* * *

><p>"I'm not entirely sure what this witch was studying precisely," Kid told his father. "But she had several books on the branch of phasmology involving modifying soul-wavelengths. What she wished to do with them <em>exactly<em>, though, I am not quite sure."

"Well, you've still done a great job, Kiddo. I'm quite impressed," the masked deity beamed. "You can keep that soul if you want, keep it for when Liz and Patty have all of their kishin souls."

"Thank you, father," he said sincerely.

"I'll send an ambulance for the girl," he said, glancing at the tub behind his son where the Thompsons were attempting to coax her away from her brother's body. "You said her name was Sandra, right?"

"Yes, that's what she told us," he ensured.

"Okay. Well, the witch, Covet, is dead and at least someone was spared. You did well, very well," he praised. "I'll see you in a bit. Bye!"

"Good bye, Father," Kid said, and the image on the mirror flickered away, leaving only his own reflection staring back at him.

He turned away and looked back at the girls who'd managed to get the girl to at least sit on the edge of the tub, if still curled around herself.

"You think she'll be okay?" Patty asked delicately.

"I dunno. We should wait here until the ambulance comes, though, just to make sure nothing happens to her," Kid replied. "I also should be taking pictures of some other things..." He wondered if she'd ever be normal after this experience, but it was something none of them could dwell on. In order to survive in this type of life, one could not worry too much about the misfortunes they could not prevent.

No matter how much he stressed this to them, though, he had the most trouble with this concept. But truly, there was nothing they could have done. There was no _if _they'd come sooner or _if _this had never happened. What happens happens and there's nothing that can be done to change it.

He often had trouble believing his own words, though. Liz squeezing his shoulder didn't help much either, but he still appreciated the gesture.

* * *

><p><em>AN: aaaaaaaaaand... yeah... _

_I have another half written story in the works that I'm planning on posting soon. Planning. Not promising. It involves nose bleeds and Kid's childhood. Be excited._

_Although, I'm currently also working on another story, one that isn't a one-shot and has a genuinely thought out plot that I NEED to get out of my head before it rots. _

_Also,_

_I've probably missed a lot of typos since this is abnormally long. I apologize and I'll fix them as I see them. Speaking of which, there's is one that I found in a read-through in which I accidentally call Kid "she". Or maybe it's "her"... However, when I went to fix it, I couldn't find it again. (i'd explain why i didn't fix it the first time, but that'd take too long) So someone tell me where it is if you see it, please D:_

_Reviews are appreciated as always. _


	18. Feeling Nostalgic

_A/N: I have been informed you are NOT supposed to tip your head by when you have a nosebleed. Excuse me while I fix this story... _

_"There's a certain symmetry to it. I really like it." ~ Jamie Hyneman whilst shooting two pistols. Ten minutes of ROFLing and squealing ensued afterward and I missed the rest of the episode._

_I'm also realizing that I love this fandom quite a lot for not having a bunch of names spellcheck doesn't like. _

_I don't Own SoulEater _

* * *

><p>His mouth was dripping with gushing crimson, liquid rubies on pale, pale lips. His shaking fingers pinched the bridge of his nose as he sat with his arm coiled tightly around his abdomen, his elbow leaning into his thigh. Trails of sticky, endlessly flowing, red trickled from his nose and down into his stained teeth.<p>

His eyes were closed and he forced himself to breathe evenly, in and out and in and out, filling his lungs and then letting the air go. Nearly all of his concentration was on his breathing, she could tell. He was just trying to stay conscious as he shook, still in the process of calming himself from a particularly bad fit of panic.

It was just a nosebleed. It would stop soon enough once his body had fixed it up, stitching back together blood vessels that burst on far too many occasions and left him looking ferrel and vampiric at first glance and like an emergency room patient at the next.

It wasn't too dangerous, at least not for him. She was pretty sure that any normal person could bleed out this way, from this sort of nosebleed, but not him. No, he'd be fine, just fine.

That didn't stop him from making her nervous, though. She'd never show it, but that much blood, enough to cover his entire chin in dribbling red fluid and leave a stain on his t-shirt, would always make her stomach lurch. She was not squeamish, not by a long shot, but her irrational side, the one that ignored the fact that Kid was a reaper with a nosebleed and only reacted to the crimson liquid, feared for his wellbeing.

"Here," Liz said, sitting down next to him with a box of tissues in her lap. She plucked one of the soft, almost cottony, things from the box and handed it to him.

Kid didn't say anything, but opened his honey-golden eyes to glance at him as he accepted it. He pressed it around his nose, poppies blooming into the pure white.

He'd never managed to stay conscious before. He'd always just blacked out, falling to the floor in an unorganized heap. Then Liz and Patty would have to carry him to his room or to a couch or somewhere for him to lie down and hope he didn't choke on his own blood. He'd wake up maybe a little less than a half hour later, all the red turned to a burnt rust color, flaking off his face like dead skin.

She almost didn't know what to do with him being awake like this.

Once that tissue was dyed completely red and sopping past it's usefulness, Liz dragged the wastebasket out from beneath the end table and placed it in front of him. There was no use keeping it where it was with all the tissues they'd be throwing away.

He tossed the used one in the bin as she handed him another.

He took it rather awkwardly, holding his hand in an uncomfortable position for fear of getting the crimson now tipping his fingers on anything else.

"You're such a mess," she couldn't keep from saying.

Kid only groaned in response.

Liz's fingers rubbed against the smooth, glossy, cardboard of the tissue box, pressing against the sharp corners strangely comfortably.

"You've gotta stop getting so stressed out about these things," she sighed. "You're gonna give yourself a heart attack one day. I just now it."

He still didn't say anything, likely too afraid his words would just slosh together with the blood in an incoherent mess.

Liz uncomfortably shifted her fingers, the skinny, delicate things crawling over the box like worms. He really was an absolute mess.

He sat back into the couch and his raven-feather hair bunched up oddly in the back, creating frayed loops and stray strands of black silk. He kept his chin tilted forward, though.

Liz rubbed her fingers on the tissue sticking out of the box, smearing the tiny bit of red her fingers had contracted. When she saw the look in his goldenrod eyes, though, she pulled the tissue out of the box all the way and threw it out.

She sighed and leaned back into the couch with him.

She could tell him it was just a plate, that it didn't matter, that it was unimportant, like she'd done a thousand times, but she just didn't feel like wasting her breath. It wasn't going to help anything. He'd just shake his head and tell her she didn't understand. Words did not exist that were sharp enough to get through his thick, neurotic, skull.

"Y'know, sometimes I wonder how you got out of bed in the morning before me 'n' Patty were here. Just saying," she said. "No offense."

She saw his throat move as he swallowed. His face turned disgusted soon afterward, but he still managed to speak. "You know, when someone says 'no offense' after something, it somehow becomes more offensive," he whispered darkly, little dots of red spitting from his lips.

"Sorry, sorry, I don't mean it like..." she paused. "I just can't imagine you living alone and still being able to deal with your own ridiculousness."

He rolled his eyes at her and then look away. He pulled the blood-sodden tissue away from his nose and threw it into the wastebasket. Liz handed him another one when he leaned back again.

It was getting lighter, she could see, as not quite as much blood was flowing into the tissue as he pressed it against his nose. She wished that _she'd _been able to heal like that when her and Patty had lived on the streets. It would have been lovely to be free of broken bones and split skin in a matter of minutes.

"I didn't really live alone for that long," he said sloppily. "Only for a couple years."

"Still..." Liz said.

"I do actually know how to take care of myself, Liz," he said.

"Look, all I'm saying is that," She paused and thought. "All I'm saying is that I can't imagine you living without someone to pull you out of your fits."

"Yes, well..." He looked down at his lap. "It took a bit longer."

He paused.

"I also didn't have anyone telling me to _stop _either, so I didn't have to leave things half done," he said accusingly.

"Oh no... I stopped spoiling you. How awful," she said blandly. She really hoped this wasn't going to turn into an argument. She really didn't want to offend him. Perhaps she shouldn't have spoken at all. "Whatever. Look, forget I said anything, okay?"

His head shifted as he thought. "Yeah..."

She sighed and looked up at the ceiling, pure white and slightly curved in this room to create a dramatic dome.

"Who lived with you before you lived alone?" she asked suddenly, the words out of her mouth before she'd finished the thought.

"Huh? Oh, um..." He pulled the tissue away from his red-encrusted nose for a second and looked at her. "Various people."

_The hell does that even mean? _"Mmm..." Her eyes screwed up in confusion.

"Well, um..." He paused and she waited for him to continue. "You're going to hate me to death and call me an over-privilaged brat, but I had various nannies until I was about nine." He laughed awkwardly.

"Really?"

"Yeah...It's kind of pathetic, actually."

"Well, no, but, it's just..." She found herself laughing a bit as well. "That just sounds like some sort of cliché stereotype I always thought was bullshit."

"Yes, well..." he breathed. "My dad couldn't exactly come and take care of me himself, so..."

She nodded, hesitating a moment before answering and letting the words well up in her mouth. "My dad, uh... was an ass, so..." She looked down at her lap and fiddled with the hem of her shirt. "I don't remember him much. He left just after Patty was born..."

Again, she wished she hadn't spoken. She'd just broken the conversation right in two.

He just nodded, though, and didn't seem quite that uncomfortable. "Neither of us had normal lives..."

She nodded in a agreement at first, but then thought about it for a bit longer. "I can remember some things, though, that were pretty normal, I mean..." she began. "I can remember watching cartons with Patty and eating cereal out of the box... When we lived somewhere with cable, anyway."

"Someone would have killed me for eating cereal out of the box," he said laughingly, pulling the tissue away from his nose and examining it.

"Seriously? That's stupid," she said. "For us, it was eating it out of the box, or eating it with water."

"Water? That's disgusting," he said astonishedly.

"Well, there wasn't any milk, so..."

"Then just, don't eat it with anything. Why the hell would you put it in water?" he said as he threw the tissue into the bin.

"So that it wasn't crunchy anymore," she said, giving him a new tissue.

"That's... No."

She giggled furiously, finding this far funnier than it ever should have been. "What'd you eat fancy cheese or something when you were little?"

"No, I ate normal snacks," he insisted. "Y'know, zebra cakes and everything."

"Zebra cakes are the shit."

"They really are, though," he agreed. "I'll admit I probably ate expensive chocolate a lot, though..."

"I figured," Liz said. "You at least watched cartoons, though, right?"

"Of course I did," he said.

"Right, right," she said. "If I was babysitting you all day, I'd definitely want you to be watching TV a good portion of the time, now that I think about it. You're annoying enough now."

"Shut up," he said, though his face conveyed no annoyance or sense of being offended. "I wasn't allowed to for that long, though. My days were really scheduled."

"Scheduled? Seriously?" A conclusion swam through her head faster than she could think. "Then I blame whoever took care of you for making you insane."

"You can't blame them for all of it," he defended. "I _am _a reaper. Keeping order is my job."

"Yes, but I think they made it worse," she said. "I couldn't imagine being little and being on a schedule." The fact that it was her friend's name made it hard to use the word "kid" in any other context. "Hell, my mom barely said anything about what me 'n' Patty did all day."

There was a pause.

"That's... kind of unfortunate, actually..." he said.

Liz shrugged. "Well, we're not going back there, so it doesn't matter."

He eyed her oddly for a moment before returning his attention to the tissue on his nose. He really wasn't bleeding anymore, though, and the blood on his lips was starting to dry.

He threw the tissue away and continued to speak. "I wasn't really supposed to leave the house at all," he said. "Not unless someone was with me."

"That's ridiculous."

"Not entirely," he said. "There aren't any other reapers in the world, so they were afraid witches would want to experiment on me or something, I guess."

"It had to suck, though," she said. She couldn't imagine being trapped in a house like that. She'd go insane.

"Kind of."

His lips and chin really were covered in blood. Honestly, he looked like a cannibal. He clearly was aware of the drying crust, though, as he kept rubbing it with the palm of his hand. At some point, he became quite fed up with the condition of his skin and stood up.

"I'm going to go wash my face off," he said. "I'll be right back."

"'Kay," she said, standing up as well. "I'm gonna go clean up the plate, then."

He winced slightly before walking out of the room and into the hall. Liz stretched and then continued out the opposite doorway that led into the kitchen.

The porcelain shards still sat where they'd been left after it had slipped from Kid's fingers. She still didn't know what had happened or how he'd dropped it, as she'd only come in by chance to find him on the floor with his hands over his face, crudely attempting to stop the bleeding, and truly had no idea what had happened previously. She supposed "accidents happen" applied here, but Kid was usually more careful than that.

No matter how it had happened, though, she still took the broom and the dust pan from their places against the wall and swept the broken pieces up.

So Kid had grown up with a bunch of nannies, then. She smiled a bit as she shoved the pieces into the plastic tray, thinking about how different their lives really were. That definitely was an odd way to live.

That led her to, once again, wonder about just where in the world Kid had actually come from. He didn't seem to have any mother that she knew of, not that she was allowed to ask about that. There was an unwritten list of things they simply weren't supposed to ask him about, and on that list was "Who was your mother?"

It was absolutely the most annoying thing about him. Maybe he didn't know, though. She didn't actually _know _who her father was either. She knew from her mother that he was an awful person, but she didn't actually know his identity. Maybe he was just as confused, if not more, than she was.

Honestly, though, did he just appear out of thin air? She knew very well that Lord Death was very fond of keeping secrets from his son, Kid told them so on a daily basis in a very irate tone, but wasn't something like that rather important?

She dumped what had once been a very nice plate into the garbage bin and then returned to the living room. Kid wasn't there yet, so she just curled up on the couch and turned the TV on to nothing in particular.

She found herself scrolling through the guide for quite a long time, well into the highest number of channels where no real television could ever exist. There was never anything on on Sunday nights.

She only briefly wondered where Patty was, feeling that if she wasn't blowing anything up in the microwave that it was fine for her to do whatever she felt like.

Kid came back a few minutes later having scrubbed his face raw like he always did. He sat back down next to her on the couch silently.

"So you weren't allowed to eat cereal out of the box, eh?"

"Nope."

"You are a deprived child."

* * *

><p><em>AN: I know that was quite short and answered absolutely no questions at all and you're probably wondering what the goddamn-hell I typed it for, but... um... There isn't much else I wanna add... Maybe they'll have a deeper more meaningful conversation in a later fic, but... idk... _

_However, I've decided that Kid's OCD comes from a combination of him having little control over his life when he was younger and being a shiningami. Yep... Over-thinking it... And you may be thinking "Dude, that's not really over-thinking," to which I shall respond with "I am psychoanalyzing a cartoon character whose mental disorder is meant to exist entirely for humorous purposes."_

_And also, thank you, xxxrosegardenxxx for suggesting/requesting a plot involving them talking about their past. I'd like to expand further on this idea, actually... My personal theory on Kid's existence is that he is some sort of incarnate of Lord Death's soul that he created because he knew there needed to be another reaper who could leave DeathCity. I didn't want to put that in the fic, though, because I don't want to treat it like fact just yet. _

_Reviews make me happy. _


	19. First Night

_A/N: Good news everyone! I'm still writing this stuff. I've been full of sick and surrounded by school-related anxiety lately, so I havn't felt much like writing. This is my pathetic explanation for my hiatus._

_I've also been trying to stop fandoming so much so that I can focus on my own original stuff. This attempt backfired as it turns out reverse-psycology works on oneself as well._

_SoulEater isn't mine and can I stop putting these disclaimers yet or do you still think I'm claiming it?_

* * *

><p>The words slipped from his lips, hissing and seething in a sibilant whisper, like steam from a tea kettle. They came in streams which whisped from his tongue frustratedly. Steam hot with anger. Little bits of flying sparks. They burned and fizzled in the air, never making it very far from his mouth. But she heard them.<p>

"Dammit... Die... Stupid...I'll die... Dammit..."

Liz stared at him confusedly, stopping in her tracks on the white marble floor. Her eyes were wide and her eyebrows pushed together. His frantic whispering continued to fizz from his mouth as he stood facing the wall. He grappled with a picture frame, turning it with acute focus. The incriminates he moved it were minute, but precise. His eyes were pinned open with his meticulousness, yet all the while he cursed himself through quiet breathes.

His fingers slipped over the plaster carefully, tapping the frame into place with the slightest of touches. All that he was focused on was straightening it in perhaps the most frighteningly specific manner she'd ever seen. Apparently, though, he was not accurate enough for his own liking.

He was talking to himself. He was telling himself that he was going to kill himself. While straightening a picture frame.

"Um, you okay there?" Liz asked, laughing awkwardly.

He froze, his fingers ceasing their movement and his muscles tensing. He hadn't noticed her, she realized. There were several seconds of silence from him. She'd managed to put a stopper on his whispering, at least, but now he had no words to say. He had yet to regain his composure as well. When he didn't speak, she felt inclined to explain herself.

"You're, um, talking to yourself," she said, still confused. She swallowed, a crooked and unsure smile was forced into her lips which did not mesh well with her contorted eyebrows. He took still more time to relax.

"W-was I?" he asked, also laughing oddly. He did not turn away from the wall, though his eyes were now facing the floor.

"Yeah. You were," she confirmed, though she knew he was aware. Or perhaps, he was now. She didn't know yet wether he'd been aware of his words as they'd slipped through his teeth.

His shoulders were tense still. She saw him bring his hands in front of himself and knew he was clutching them tight. He heard him swallow, if only because it bled into his words as he peeled his tongue off the roof of his mouth.

"I'm sorry," was all he said to her. His voice was pitched and embarrassed.

"Do you, um, normally do that?" she asked tentatively, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He breathed in deeply and then exhaled his response.

"Perhaps," he said. His confidence was slowly finding it's way back into his throat. Though, he still forced her to speak to his back, at the blankest part of his suit jacket.

"O-okay," she replied with no other ideas of what to say. She let out a breathy, hoarse laugh while shifting on her feet and twisting her hair in her fingertips. "It just makes you seem kind of psychotic is all."

He stared at the floor for a moment more. Liz began to contemplate their decision to allow this boy, whom they've never met, to take them more than half way across the country. There was no way for them to leave. They had no way to get out if turned out to be a liar, or just insane. She sucked in a shallow breath, waiting for him to reply.

"I, ah," he started. There was a long pause while he hesitated. His arms loosened slightly. He was clutching his wrist now. When he finally spoke, his words were slow to emerge. "The picture frame wasn't level with the ground."

Liz only stared at him worriedly. He finally decided to turn around then, much to her relief. He attempted to look casual, but he was still still and his expression was just as uncomfortable as hers.

"It was imperfect. It needed to be corrected," he said simply, clasping his hands together and biting his lip. "Actually, it's still rather crooked, so if you wouldn't mind, um..."

"It looks fine to me," Liz said, eyeing the painting with uncertainty. There was nothing about it that seemed crooked.

"Weren't you and Patricia looking around the house?" he asked harmlessly. He twisted his rings around his fingers, running his thumb over the faces of the skulls.

"Yes," she said, a glare in her eyes. "But she went somewhere and now I cant find her."

He hesitated slightly, opening his mouth and then pausing before he spoke. "Would you like me to help you find her?" he asked carefully. "This house really isn't quite _that_ big. She can't be too lost."

"Um, sure," she said. Though, he quickly turned back to his previous task of straightening the picture.

"I just have to fix this first. Then I'll help you," he said. Liz was still having trouble seeing what fixing needed to be done, but nevertheless, she nodded.

"Alright sure, dude," she said as she crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall.

She watched him manically fix the picture frame with a combination of nervousness and amusement. She had no idea what to think of this. Somehow, though, she found herself starting to laugh lightly.

"So um," she started to speak more leisurely. "Death, or Kid, or whatever the hell you wanna be called..."

"Mhmm?" he answered strenuously. His shoulders and arms were quite stiff with concentration.

"Does anyone else live here? At all?" she asked. As far as she could tell, Gallows Manor seemed fairly empty. It was rather under furnished as well. Many of the rooms were being used as either storage rooms or were entirely empty. Some of them were decorated as sitting rooms or studies, but other than that there wasn't much. They had found about five rooms being used as bedrooms, though. Of course, there had been only one that seemed like it was actually being slept in and that had been the one he'd pointed out as his.

"Um, no, actually," he said, sounding a bit self-councious. "My father doesn't exactly, well..."

He attempted to continue, but ended up cutting himself over and over again. He'd start the first word of a sentence, and then clip the rest off. There was some incoherent mumbling mixed in as well that she didn't quite hear.

"I guess um," he was finally close to forming a comprehendible thought. "Well, my father doesn't usually leave his, er, office, in the academy building."

"So you just have this gigantic house all to yourself?" she concluded.

"Yes," he said as he finally pulled his arms away from the wall. He still held them up, though, with open palms as though he was expecting the picture to fall. He tilted his head to the side and then the other, taking a step or two back from the wall to get a better look. Then he dropped his arms and clasped his hands together, turning around on his heel with a look of success on his face.

"Alright," he said, pulling his hands apart again and shoving them into his pockets. "Now that that crisis is taken care of..."

"If you really wanna call it a crisis," Liz said, curling her lip slightly.

"Of course it was. Don't be ridiculous," he said.

"Right, how stupid of me not to notice how massively important a slightly crooked picture frame was," she said rather irately.

He lifted an eyebrow disbelievingly. "Now, I believe your sister is near the kitchen," he told her. "Since that's around where her soul appears to be."

"If you knew, you could've just told me that," she said, her lips tightening as she pushed herself away from the wall.

"I was busy, as you could most certainly see," he said calmly.

"You could've told me," she said. "Thanks for wasting my time," she hissed, turning away from him and beginning to make her way down the hall with impatient steps.

She could feel those amber irises set in marble digging into her back as she walked away, unblinking and judging. She crossed her arms over her chest as she rounded the corner.

As the next corridor stretched out before her, the black and white tiles of the floor and the bleached white walls broken only by doorways that could lead absolutely anywhere, she realized she didn't know where the kitchen was. Still, she continued forward, not even contemplating going back to ask him for help.

She took a turn that she thought led around near where she thought she'd seen the kitchen before. She remembered walking passed some doors that looked like they led into a kitchen earlier, black doors without handles that would be pushed open by some sort of chef dragging out lavish food.

Of course, there were no chefs in Gallows Manor, or butlers, or maids, or any sort of serving staff at all, directly contradicting the outward appearance of the place. The place was so incredibly spotless that she had no idea how on in the world there was no one to clean it.

He'd said people were only hired to do such things when the manor was hosting some sort of event. Otherwise, he cooked and cleaned almost entirely by himself.

Liz just prayed that that meant he knew how to cook well, because she sure as hell wasn't doing it for him.

She turned another corner, something inside of her wondering if that kid was following her. She glanced over her shoulder just briefly. He was nowhere to be found, thankfully, and she continued walking.

She came around another turn and paced down the hallway, the bland and cold pantings whirling past her and her footsteps echoing off the sterile floor. Had she seen those paintings before? She thought she might've seen that particular skull design before, but she couldn't tell. Maybe the one she'd seen had been in a gold frame instead of a black frame. What if that was a different one she was thinking of?

Her feet took an abrupt turn. She was sure that she'd never taken a right down this hall before. She was positive.

Had she seen _that _painting before? The one of the palindrome written in unreadable calligraphy that was set in a swirling silver frame? She may have, but... She was sure she'd never taken a right here before.

"Patty, where the hell are you?" she called, her voice echoing through the empty, dead, and bleached white corridor.

"She's gone upstairs."

She gasped silently, air sharply and tightly rushing into her lungs, speeding up her heart. The next moment, her fist came crashing into the wall.

"Shit!" she shrieked, tightening her arms at her sides. "Goddammit, what the fuck are you doing here!"

"Same as you. I'm looking for your sister," he said cooly.

She just glared down into those honey-golden eyes and that dresden face that had so acutely avoided her fist.

"Now," he paused. "Where precisely were you were going?"

"Where do you think I was going?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"I don't know, where did _you _think you were going?" He raised his eyebrows.

Why did this kid insist on being so_ infuriating_?

"I'm not stupid, you know, you don't have to talk to me like that," she said.

His eyebrows pulled together and his golden eyes squinted slightly. His frowning lips parted momentarily in preparation to speak, but then closed again after a moment of thought.

"Okay, um," he said in a breath as he took a few steps away from her. "If you would, I'd appreciate it if you'd find your sister and keep her from breaking anything or otherwise harming my house while I start making dinner."

Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating. Just a spoiled brat with no knowledge of the world.

"Oh, don't worry," she smiled. "I'll make sure she doesn't hurt anything, since she's incapable of taking care of herself and all."

He gave her that look again, with those judgmental and confused eyes. Again, he looked like he was about to say something, but decided otherwise and changed what he was about to say at the last moment.

"Alright, well..." he said as he continued to step away from her. "Alright," he dismissed, turning away from her fully and continuing down the hall.

Liz glared at his back as his footsteps echoed off the walls until he turned the corner and was finally out of her sight.

* * *

><p>"Noodles!"<p>

"It's_ pasta_."

These girls were incredibly, incredibly frustrating. Both of them were horrendously unruly and more than a bit irritating. The younger one seemed to be the incarnate of Arris herself, with the way she skipped and stumbled through the house like a playground. She was going to break something within the next hour, he could feel it. He was positive she must've broken something already. She just must have. He was sure of it.

He wasn't going to ask he, though, because the diameter her eyes could stay stretched open to for an extended period of time was quite frightening. She seemed to forget to blink sometimes, or perhaps just saw no reason to. She'd just stare and stare, perhaps at a fly or at the ceiling or the door or maybe just at nothing.

She was like a little doll, sitting stiffly in street-rotten skin with shifty glass eyes with sapphire irises that could follow everything he did and seem to see nothing at all. Those glossy spherules turned toward him now, glaring up at him as her head still faced her plate filled with a tangle of shiny fettucini.

Little blue robin's eggs hid behind a curtain of yellow tendrils as soft as feathers. Sick, festering, robin's eggs that had long since fallen from their nest...

Kid swallowed his words and did not go to correct her any further. It really wasn't necessary anyway.

He looked away from those eyes and walked away from the table, glancing only briefly at the cold shards of blue glass glaring at him from across from her. He walked back into the kitchen hurriedly and replaced the pot on the stove.

When he reentered the dining room, before he could even sit, the older girl spoke. He was beginning to wish she'd stop doing that.

"This it?" she asked.

It took a moment for her question to register.

"Yes," he said.

"There's no sauce or nothin'," she said. His eyes locked with her cobalt ones with tired bags beneath them that were far too old for her face.

_Should you really be complaining? Weren't you homeless until a few hours ago? _he thought, though he couldn't bring himself to actually say such a thing. It would only be a catalyst that would thicken the tension.

"I know," he said instead. "I... don't eat pasta with anything on it. I'm sorry."

She frowned, as did her sister, and he realized they must have come here expecting elaborate and expensive dishes.

"I have olive oil and cheese in the kitchen if you'd like it," he offered.

She looked at him for a second with eyes as blue as the depths of the sea. She tucked her hair, the color of wheat, behind her ear. "Sure," she said.

He turned and paced back to the kitchen. This one, the older one, was infinitely on the defensive, always taking offense, always paranoid, always terrified and forcing herself to look confidant.

Her face was covered in a thick layer of makeup, far too much eyeliner and lustrous eyeshadow thickly defining her eyes and foundation caked onto her skin. Those deep blue eyes were always accusing, always blaming.

He supposed it was important to be so careful on the streets, and he knew that being in a situation such as this where she was so far from home was making her uncomfortable. It would take her time to get used to it, like it would bringing home a new puppy.

Yes, it was exactly like bringing home a puppy. He'd found two stray dogs on the streets of Brooklyn and had decided for some reason to bring them home.

He supposed he shouldn't paint himself the hero here, as he really had done this for his own need for weapons, but he really did feel like he was helping them, at least somewhat. He didn't know if he'd be able to change their mentality, though. They'd have to be on probation for a while. Perhaps that would help them adjust to this lifestyle.

He pulled the cupboard doors open and pulled the greasy glass bottle of olive oil before closing them again. He pulled the glass jar of parmesan out of the refrigerator as well before returning their unsure eyes in the dining room.

He put the items on the tablecloth and finally sat down at the long table.

Both of them grabbed for the olive oil immediately, though the younger sister managed to get her hands on it first. She snatched it up with two hands and stuck out her tongue. So unruly...

She poured it all over her plate of pasta, practically drowning it, before giving it to her sister. It was disgusting, but he said nothing.

"Why don'chu put anything on it?" the younger girl asked, now dumping more cheese than should ever be necessary onto the pasta as well.

"I just don't like it," he said.

"You're weird," she replied.

He just began twisting the pasta around his fork.

"Kay so like," Liz began, pouring olive oil over her pasta. "How's all this gonna work out?"

He looked up. "What do you mean?"

"Us living here, an' everything. And, like..." She paused to dump flakes of cheese onto the pasta as well. "What're we gonna have to do as your weapons and shit."

"Please don't swear," he said, ignoring the look she gave him. "As for living here, you can pick one of the available rooms," he said. He internally reminded himself to lock all of the rooms with valuable items in them before he went to bed.

As that thought surfaced, he suddenly realized that he had just invited two criminals to live in his house. Of course, he'd realized that before, but the weight with which the idea struck him at this moment was crushing. They weren't just homeless girls, and they weren't puppies. They were in fact dangerous and charged with multiple accounts of assault and armed robbery.

"I still need to discuss with my father your final arrangements as well, but I'm hoping you realize that all of your charges have not been dropped," he stated.

The younger girl, who had been viciously shoving her pasta into her mouth, stopped all movements and stared at him with wide crystalline eyes. The older girl's face became angry and frustrated, though laced with deep concern.

"You both will most likely need to complete a period of probation of some kind before you can officially become my weapons," he continued.

"The hell does that mean?" the older sister insisted furiously, her focus torn entirely from her food.

"It means you'll have to do some work and prove yourselves as trustworthy," he said simply.

"So you don't trust us," she hissed in the softest and most threatening voice he believed could come from her throat. Her voice was not only threatening, though, but also quite threatened. There was also hate there, quite a lot of hate.

He let go of his fork, which still had not made it to his mouth, and let it fall onto his plate with a _clank. _He folded his hands tightly together in his lap, adjusting his posture so that he was sitting up straighter. His locked his eyes with her blue ones, darkened with a thick cloud of wariness and malice, and attempted to keep his expression dependable. He took a breath.

"It is not wise to employ criminals," he stated softly. He did not pull his eyes away from hers, even as they widened antagonistically and even as her jaw twisted disbelievingly.

He wished she wouldn't take offense to such a thing, as it was fact as they were most certainly classified as criminals. He did not adjust his posture, though, staying stiff and keeping his eyes just as confident as he could. There was nothing these girls could do to him that he couldn't handle.

He could feel the other girl's eyes on him as well, wide and unblinking, driving nails into the side of his head. He ignored them, even as she suddenly slurped the fettucini hanging from her lips into her mouth where it belonged.

The older girl's lips, coated in shiny lip gloss and flattened into a line, pulled into a deeper and deeper frown. As they did so, the other girl's mouth spread wider and wider into a demented, cheshire, smile showcasing all of her crooked teeth.

He still did not look away and his posture did not shrink. If they were going to live in his house, there was no room for kneeling and there was no room for intimidation.

"Okay," she said quietly, a tiny sneer on her lips. The other girl's smile stretched to the point of appearing painful, pulling her skin like elastic. Such pretty, pretty, faces all contorted with a sort of feral essence that could never be washed away. He held his own glare, even as the porcelain cracked and glass eyes shattered. They were really rotten robins eggs anyway, just forgotten for a bit too long, just festering, rotting, cracking.

A high, shrieking, giggle escaped from the youngest sister's throat, just briefly fluttering into his ears when she couldn't hold it in any longer. He placed his hands on the table where they both could see them, still folded together.

"So," she began, much calmer than he expected. "If we do this probation thing, we can stay here? Is that what you're saying?"

He swallowed. "Yes."

He was ready for her to scream, as her soul was just about fuming with violent intent. He was ready for a fight, and so was her sister. But it didn't come. She never gave the command for her sister to transform. She never stood up. She never yelled, she never even raised her voice at all.

He wasn't the only one here whose anticipations were wrong it seemed as well, as the younger girl's smile fell as soon as her sister opened her mouth.

She spoke, calmly, almost disturbingly so.

"Then we'll do that, and we'll prove to you we're not just worthless criminals."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Only thing I've gotta say, is that I'm thinking that if Kid's a god, and has heightened senses, he'd like bland food more. I base this on the fact that I have a cousin who is hypersensitive to everything and only eats plain pasta, plain french-fries, and cupcakes without frosting. My sister is also currently dating a guy who has this same issue, and when he came to stay with us for christmas he only ate plain pasta, raw vegetables, and tofu. He's also is slightly OCD and makes lists of everything and let me borrow some comic books. I like him. I hope she keeps him._

_As usual, theres probably a shit ton of typos that I'll fix as when I see them. _

_Anywho... thanks for everyone who reads all of these. xD_


	20. An Unusual Winter in the Mojave

_ A/N: So I wrote this back when it was winter and never finished it for some reason but, uh... here ya' go._

_We're going to pretend there's no such thing as meteorology or science of any kind for a little bit. _

__SoulEater isn't mine and can I stop putting these disclaimers yet or do you still think I'm claiming it?__

* * *

><p>Liz was falling asleep, her hand the only thing keeping her head off of her desk. When they'd been told the main subject they'd be focusing on was phasmology, she'd assumed that it'd be interesting. She must've been a fool for thinking studying souls and their properties would be exciting and new. It had seemed so at first, anyway. But she'd since learned that what it all boiled down to was a romanticized version of psychology combined with a bit of chemistry.<p>

The only thing that genuinely intrigued her was the process by which one became a kishin. However, they weren't going to be getting into that for quite some time. So she was stuck here, bored out of her freaking mind, while Professor Stein went on and on about... What was he even talking about? Something about how soul-wavelength energy was conducted.

Kid, of course, was taking extensively detailed notes. Her and her sister had taken to just looking at his notes later rather than paying attention to the lecture. The boy was like a human tape-recorder. He also had the habit of being a bit of a know-it-all, so he took joy in explaining it to them, though his tone was usually irritatingly condescending and snarky. His favorite part was always complaining about how Stein had watered it down and telling them that _this _was how it really was.

She didn't understand why he took notes at all in the first place. He already knew all of this stuff. He'd told them a thousand times like the arrogant bastard he was. It wasn't like he was going to look at them anyway. The only purpose they seemed to serve was to compensate for her and Patty's disinterest.

Perhaps it was just to make it look like he was doing something, since the three of them had been given very low participation grades in the beginning for not taking any notes and just sitting there staring off into space. Patty had become very good at looking busy, though Liz knew this ability had come on accident, as she was always scribbling doodles in her notebook.

Just look like you're paying attention and everything will be fine. Today, though, Liz didn't really even feel like doing that. So she just stared at the board as Stein drew and labeled diagrams they were supposed to be copying down and made bazar analogies that all somehow connected soul theories with the dissection of various animals.

At some point, her eyes trailed off to the side to the window. It took her a minute to comprehend, as she was positive that such things did not normally occur in the middle of the desert, but eventually she saw that it was indeed snowing outside. It had been cloudy this morning when she woke up, so she knew they were in for their, roughly, bimonthly precipitation, but she didn't think it'd be snow.

Sure, it got cold here during the winter and sure, it rained, but it had been so long since she'd seen snow, other than on missions, it was just astonishing.

She also wasn't the only one who'd noticed.

She saw Patty ripping a scrap of paper out of her notebook and begin excitedly scribbling on it. She knew exactly what she was writing before she folded it up and tossed it over Kid's arm.

Sure enough, it read: "_Holy shit it's snowing!"_

Liz quickly wrote, "_I know!"_ on the little bit of paper before folding it back up and tossing it back to her.

Kid gave them both a slightly irritated glance, but then went back to his notes.

When Patty handed the paper back to her again, it said in messy hand writing, "_Why cant this class be over yet? Im so fucking board."_

She ignored the spelling and wrote "_It'll be over in 10 minutes" _after glancing at the clock ticking on the wall.

Kid was clearly getting quite annoyed with them passing things over him as she tossed the paper back to her sister.

Patty scrawled something on the paper again and gave it back to her.

_"but im so board!"_ Next to the writing was a picture of a walrus. Liz was just as bored, so she went with it and drew a mustache on the walrus.

She threw it back to her and Patty giggled discreetly. Her pen ran over the paper quickly and she threw it over Kid's notes and back to her.

The walrus had gained a top hat and a vest.

She gave it back after giving it a monocle.

When it was returned to her again, it had wings and an arrow through it's head.

She sent it back with a pet cat; a wall-eyed cat with a ridiculous smile and a unibrow.

Patty gave the cat a hand coming out of it's face. Or at least, that's what she thought it was.

Both were given matching mutton chops and lipstick before she threw it back to her.

Kid was growing increasingly irritated, but didn't seem to feel the need to stop it. At least, that was, until Patty accidentally hit his hand when tossing the paper back. His pen jerked, slashing a line of ink across his notes.

"Sorry," she whispered so softly she may as well have been mouthing it. Kid glared at her, though, and quickly snatched the paper out of her hands.

Before he could get it into his pocket, however, she made to grab it back from him. Kid wouldn't let go, though, which resulted in a small game of tug of war that they attempted to hide beneath the desk.

As subtle as Kid attempted to be with it, several people noticed and turned to look at them at the slight scraping of their chairs, bringing them to the attention of the professor.

"Patty..." Kid hissed as quietly as he could.

Neither of them apparently had realized that Stein had ceased speaking and was staring at them. Once Kid managed to finally tare it out of her hand, though, and stick it in his pocket, both of them froze under the man's glare.

Stein sighed and walked up the steps to the row they were sitting in. He held out his hand. "Give it to me," he said disappointedly.

Kid placed the crumpled piece of paper in the palm of his hand hesitantly. Stein walked away without looking at it and proceeded to throw it away in the trash bin beside his desk.

"Now, if you three are done acting like eight-year-olds, I'd like to finish this lesson before the bell rings..." he said with his icily cool voice.

"Hey, they were the ones fighting, don't look at me," Liz said hastily. She internally slapped herself for still having the left over instinct from the streets to immediately blame someone else. Though, she really _hadn't_ been doing anything disruptive.

"Please be quiet," he said calmly. "It shouldn't be this hard to behave yourselves for just five more minutes."

* * *

><p>"I can't believe it's actually snowing!"<p>

Patty was ridiculously ecstatic about this occurrence. She wasn't able to sit still or be quiet at all. It was actually quite annoying, since their study hall teacher kept getting mad at them for making too much noise. Liz honestly didn't understand why she was always blamed for her sister's and her meister's idiocy.

No matter what the reason, though, she really didn't feel like sitting in study hall today. Their study hall was a full hour and a half long due to some string-pulling on Kid's part. They'd requested this instead of taking another class during this period, but it turned out sitting in the same room with nothing to do for that long was absolute torture.

They had to get up and go somewhere or they were both probably going to just lay down and die. Therefore, they'd decided to go visit (intrude upon) Kid's class. Patty was avidly speaking of all the wonders of snow and of how she couldn't wait to play in it and have a snowball fight and anything and everything else she could think of as they walked through the empty hallways toward the gym.

"I don't know if there's gonna be enough snow for all that, Patty," Liz said hesitantly.

"Yeah there will be," she replied, a frustrated edge to her voice. She clearly did not want to be told such a thing. "It always rains a ton here when it rains, so there'll be a ton of snow, too."

"Alright, just don't be disappointed if there's not a lot," she said calmly.

"I wont be. 'Cause there will be a lot," she said.

"Okay."

Patty grunted irritatedly as she pushed open the door of the gymnasium. The two walked into the enormous room without hesitation. They did this nearly every day. They brought their pass book with them, but they didn't really need to show it to Nygus. They just walked up the bleachers and sat down on the rough plastic.

The sounds of so many rushing footsteps echoed off the walls, dotted with the occasional squeaking of sneakers on polished wood. Every meister in the academy and a select few weapons were down on the gymnasium floor running sprints. They were still doing warm ups, apparently.

Though they also had regular PE classes, meisters took another class meant to train them in martial arts. It wasn't really enough to keep them in the conditions they needed to be in for missions, so they still had to train themselves outside of school, but it gave everyone the chance to do so at least once a day.

All meisters were required to take this class. It was optional for weapons, but weapons that did not take the class were supposed to take another extracurricular class instead. The two sisters had opted out of both. Patty, however, often took part in this class when they decided to visit.

Today, though, she was too busy worrying about the snow. She was still rambling on about it. Liz believed she'd told her how she was going to build a snowman about six times now.

A whistle blew suddenly and everyone ceased running. They all stood catching their breath for a moment or two, all their movements slowed in dramatic contrast their previous ones.

That all changed in a matter of moments, however, as Nygus called out for their next exercise. They all quickly and neatly lined up at one end of the gym.

The whistle blew again and all of them took a few steps forward before flipping over onto their hands and continuing down the gym. The scene was caught somewhere between elegant and comical. All of them walking across the gym on their hands was a fantastic display of fitness, however, they were also all in extremely short shorts and looked a bit like waddling, fleshy, zombies.

"Don't fall, Kid! Don't fall! If you fall, you'll die! Don't fall!" Patty was yelling loudly. "Oh, you almost fell! Don't fall! Don't fall!"

Liz laughed and yelled with her.

"Oh god, don't fall! Don't mess up! Don't fall!"

Kid and BlackStar reached the other end of the gym first, though Kid won by maybe a foot. They each picked up a candycane up off the floor with their teeth before turning around and making their way back. Really, this was a highly amusing exercise to watch.

"Don't fall! Don't fall!"

Kid was most certainly not going to fall. Then again, they weren't _really _warning him either. It would actually be hilarious if he fell.

"Kid! Kid! Don't fall and don't die!"

Embarrassing him was similarly amusing, though.

"God, Kid! What are you doing? You almost fell! I said don't fall!"

Kid and BlackStar were both at the front with Maka rather close behind.

"Maka! Kid and BlackStar are beating you! The hell are you doing with your life? And Kid, I freaking said, "Don't fall!" Stop falling!"

They were nearly at the other end of the gym now.

"God, what is he doing?" Liz asked sarcastically.

"Jeez, man, I dunno. He just keeps falling," Patty replied, shaking her head. "God, Kid, stop falling!"

"Hey, be a little quieter, alright?" came a female voice from below them. They looked off the side of the bleachers to where Nygus was standing, whistle in hand.

"Sorry," Liz said, laughing.

"Oh! Nyugs, can I go too?" Patty asked avidly.

"Sure, Patty. I really think you should just start taking this class," Nygus replied. The majority of the students had returned to the end of the gym, candycanes in tact, just then and Nygus blew her whistle.

Patty jumped down the bleachers and onto the gymnasium floor. She ran over to where Kid was now standing and panting heavily. Liz couldn't hear what was said, but she could tell by Patty's gestures that it was somewhere along the lines of "Idiot, I told you not to fall!"

"Next set!" Nygus called. Everyone lined up at the end of the gym again, this time with the added addition of Patty. She blew her whistle and again, everyone took a few steps before flipping forward and walking on their hands.

* * *

><p>"Holy crap, snow!"<p>

It was just flurrying at the moment, but Patty was most definitely not wrong. It was also quite windy, as it always was at the academy. Being placed so high up on a hill made it a target for fast moving air.

"Augh, I really don't want to walk home in this," Liz sighed, trying over and over again to keep her hair out of her face as they made their way down the stairway.

"It's not even snowing that much," Kid said, also fussing repeatedly with his hair before shoving a knit hat on top of his head. It was black hat with exactly three white stripes. This hat had made his life by defying his dye-resistant hair. He loved this hat. No one could ever take this hat away from him without dying first. No one.

"But it is mad brick out here!" she said.

"I vote we have a snowball fight!" BlackStar shouted avidly.

"There isn't enough snow for that, dumb-ass," Soul said in a bored tone.

"When there is we totally should!" Patty agreed.

Liz shoved her hands into the pockets of her peacoat, wondering how she'd forgotten her gloves this morning. It was quite astonishing to her how cold it actually got here.

"I dunno if it's actually going to snow that much," she said.

"Yeah, it usually doesn't snow that much here," Maka added. "It's not like NewYork." She said the last part more to Patty than to anyone else.

"At least there aren't really any cars so it wont be all brown mush," Liz said. "So it'll probably look pretty anyway."

"Yeah, the snow in the city is usually all gross and full of dirt and stuff so it's kinda useless," Soul said.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Maka agreed.

"I haven't seen snow in a while and I'll admit I sort of miss it," Tsubaki said quietly, soft enough so that only half of the group actually heard her.

"I wouldn't expect too much. I don't think I've really seen more than an inch or two at a time here," Kid said, staring at the sky that had been coated with a solid sheet of white clouds.

"Aww, but it might," Patty said hopefully.

"All I'm saying is don't be upset if the snowfall is too minimal," he said.

They came to the first landing that cut up the enormous staircase where Soul always left his motorcycle. It was the closest place to the school it could be parked.

"Well, see you guys later, alright?" Soul said, unlocking the bike.

"Yeah, we'd stay longer but the weather and everything..." Maka said. The group usually hung out for a while after school before heading home.

After several good-byes, the two got on the motorcycle together, Maka wrapping her arms around her weapon's waist. Then the engine revved and they took off down the winding ramp that wrapped around the hill.

The rest of them just continued down the stairs together in the brisk air, BlackStar and Patty both rambling about the snow. Liz was surprised he didn't feel that he was "too big" for something like snowball fights, but apparently any opportunity to potentially kick Kid's ass was something he took joy in. The two groups walked together until they came to the landing where they had to part ways.

* * *

><p>Kid was awoken abruptly the next morning, his eyes torn open and his dreams, whatever they had been, falling so far into the back of his mind he'd never retrieve them again, by the sudden sound of his bedroom door banging open followed by a heavy weight slamming onto his chest.<p>

"I freaking told you so!"

His eyes refused to be open for more than a few seconds at a time, but between his eyelids he could see a very excited Patty, still clad in her pajamas and her blonde hair sticking up in knots behind her head. It was like Christmas all over again.

"I told you!" she said. "I told you!"

In a daze, Kid pushed himself up on his arms to look at her. "Patty... What...? What are you even...?" He could feel the messiness of his own hair pulling on his scalp.

"Get up!"

Kid blinked. "Wha- Why?"

"'Cause there's snow freaking everywhere!" She replied excitedly.

He looked at her for several seconds before replying with a pathetic and quite confused, "Oh... Okay..."

"Come on! You gotta get up!" she said urgently.

"Patty, wait, what... What time is it?" he asked, leaning back into his pillow and rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands.

"It's six-oh-nine," she said.

"And it's Saturday, right?" he asked.

"Yeah."

"Then why are you awake?"

"'Cause there's snow all over the place!" she answered simply. "Come on. Get up!"

"Yeah, okay..." he said, turning back over onto his side and pressing his face into his pillow.

"No! Get up!" she insisted, jumping off his bed. "Come on!"

"Okay..." he agreed again, pulling the covers back over himself. He wasn't even hearing what she was saying anymore.

"Get up, stupid!"

"Come ge'me at eight 'er sumthin'..." he mumbled into his pillow.

Patty made a loud, frustrated, groan before walking out of his room and slamming the door.

Regardless of this, however, he found himself being forced out of his normal routine, no kicking and screaming left out, shoved into boots and a white jacket, and kicked out the door. At least he'd argued and panicked long enough to let the sun come up. Though, some of that panic had seemed suspiciously over embellished.

"Just appease her, please," Liz sighed as she pushed on his shoulders and guided him toward the open and waiting door. "Besides, I want to go back to bed just as bad as you do, so I don't want to hear your bitching."

"Can't we at least eat breakfast first? And just... that painting, right there, it's really, really- Can I just fix it?" he pleaded pointing to one of the paintings in the entryway as she pushed him out the door.

"No," Liz said, shutting it behind them. "If I can't sleep in on a Saturday, then you can't be happy either." She gripped his collar and began dragging him down the steps. "Now come the hell on."

Patty was already at the end of the pathway, her foot prints destroying the perfection of the fresh snow in a crooked line that roughly followed where the pathway was supposed to be. So he didn't even get to enjoy that.

Though he was still quite amazed at the amount of snow that had fallen. Surely it wouldn't last long, but it was still quite an anomaly. He stepped into Patty's deep footprints in an attempt to preserve as much of the perfection of the snow as he could.

* * *

><p>No one had any idea how it got started, but at some point they ended up in a small park trying to kill each other with balls of packed snow. They also had somehow broken up into teams without speaking. Kid supposed it didn't really matter how it happened, but he was quite keen on blaming BlackStar as he distinctly recalled <em>him <em>throwing ice at his head an uncertain amount of time ago.

Were he as mature as he liked to pretend he was, Kid would probably think that this had gotten out of hand and that they were taking this far too seriously. He would probably think they were all being too competitive. He would probably just shake his head and walk away. But he wasn't. So he didn't.

Instead he was currently standing defensively next to a tree thinking of a thousand ways to beat BlackStar, and of course Maka and Patty, but mostly BlackStar.

Liz shrieked as Patty hit her in the shoulder with a snowball and hid behind a tree next to him.

Kid just looked at her.

"What! It's freaking cold!" she whispered angrily.

He just continued to look at her for a moment before returning his attention to strategy. Before he could think of a good one, though, BlackStar, whilst loudly claiming his greatness, climbed into the branches of a similarly close tree and threw several snowballs at him.

Kid dodged most of them in an unnecessarily professional fashion that sent him to the ground, but one managed to get him just below his neck, crumbling into frigid ice that fell down his shirt.

He quickly retaliated and threw one back at him, but he jumped out of the tree and it missed. Luckily, Soul avenged him and got him in the side of the head.

"Hey!"

Kid pushed himself out of the snow just in time for a ball of snow to hit him in the shoulder. He was able to turn his head to see his attacker for a brief moment before something warm, somewhat bony, and enveloped in a coat slammed into his side and sent him back to the ground.

"Don' worry, I got this," Patty told BlackStar, who was already running after Soul, as she made every effort to restrain the reaper.

Meanwhile, Liz leaned against the tree just next to him.

"You're not going to help, are you," he choked out as Patty put him into a headlock.

"You could get yourself out of this if you wanted to," she said.

Maybe this had gone too far. But then again...

* * *

><p>After a some tactile squirming and a bit of skill, he did manage to remove himself from Patty's grip and run off toward BlackStar and Soul.<p>

After their snowball fight had become unusually violent, not only had parents removed their children from the park, but they had drawn a brief crowd of spectators, many of whom were confused, if only momentarily. After the realization that they were academy students, as fighting students was such a norm in Death City, no one paid any particular mind and went on their way.

So BlackStar, Kid, Soul, and Patty eventually ended up being the only ones pelting each other with snowballs, while Liz, Maka and Tsubaki retreated to some frozen benches to wait out their nonsense.

Soul was the first to get tired and join them, finding this 'game' not worth his efforts as it could barely be described as a game anymore being that the use of snowballs was becoming scarce as Kid and BlackStar had begun resorting to genuine martial arts.

Patty too eventually stopped and came to sit with them once she realized she was being almost entirely excluded. She slumped into the space on the bench next to Soul.

"So you guys wanna go get coffee or something?" Liz offered in a bored tone.

"Shouldn't we wait for them...?" Tsubaki hesitated.

"They probably wont even notice we're gone," Soul said, glancing back at their escalating battle.

"Yeah but, what if they hurt someone?" Maka said unsurely.

"Maybe we should try and stop them," Tsubaki suggested as one of them sent a tree limb crashing into the ground.

Liz watched as her meister was thrown several feet backwards from a punch in the face and then saw BlackStar get a good kick in the ribs in retaliation.

"Maybe..."

* * *

><p><em>AN: This isn't anything I'd planned on posting this month, but I just have no motivation or inspiration to write at the moment... So this'll have to do._

_Reviews are appreciated and stuff and yeah_


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